


Hiding From Homicidal Hobbits

by Questions3



Series: Bilbo And Company [2]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: BAMF Bilbo, Everybody Lives, F/M, Female Bilbo, M/M, Post Hobbit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2017-12-31 10:25:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 34,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1030595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Questions3/pseuds/Questions3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Faint white figures paint my sleep<br/>please don't tell my secrets keep them hidden (you got it, you got it, you got it)<br/>if the words that matter reach your face from floor<br/>will you be wondering if, or (do I need what is given or honest)<br/>does it cost me scarring if the words stay true<br/>even number your nephew (I don't want it, don't want it, don't want it anymore)</p><p>and when the answer that you want<br/>is in the question that you state<br/>come what may<br/>come what may</p><p>what did I do to deserve<br/>what did I do to deserve<br/>this? this?</p><p>Coheed and Cambria - Blood Red Summer</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Gandalf

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to [Anything You Can Do](http://archiveofourown.org/works/995973/chapters/1970244)  
> What do you do when you're being hunted down by a rampaging Hobbit? Or the 15 different ways to handle the angry Bilbo Baggins.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do you believe in magic, in a young girl's heart?  
> How the music can free her, whenever it starts  
> And it's magic, if the music is groovy  
> It makes you feel happy like an old-time movie  
> I'll tell you about the magic and it'll free your soul  
> But it's like tryin' to tell a stranger 'bout rock and roll
> 
> Lovin’ Spoonful – Do You Believe In Magic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You really shouldn't loose other people's shit.

            He was being watched. The day was sunny, the wind was crisp, and Nori was sure as a snake staring down a mongoose he was being watched. Arguably the Spy Master was just this side of paranoid by trade. But as they said in the Mountain, just cause the ground wasn’t quaking didn’t mean the cave wasn’t about to fall on your head. Besides, he was honored and paid to exhibit a healthy level of that very same paranoia and it tended, more often than not to be justified. Why, it had saved Thorin from the assassins that had tromped through from the Iron Hills, it had gotten Bilbo out of the midst of a pack of skin traders (apparently there were plenty who’d pay well for a wee hobbit pet of their own (who knew?)), and it had saved the lives of the elder Ur dwarrow from the orchestrated cave in by the radicals of the Blue Mountains who thought the newly reclaimed kingdom cursed. Of course there was the time he’d chased a band of shifty looking elves through the city of Esgaroth just to find they were celebrating the coming of age of one of their own, the week he’d spent watching Lady Vaíl because he’d been sure she was cheating on Glóin with a blacksmith of the Iron Hills (her first cousin, but really could you blame him for thinking it? The dwarf was insufferably mushy when it came to his family. Who knew that was apparently a turn on for the flame haired mother?), or the other time he’d accused Bilbo of making off with his favored pair of throwing knives (which she had in fact but that was for her and Dwalin to know and Nori wouldn’t find out about it till well after Bilbo had traveled to the lands of Valinor and he was reminiscing with the old Guard). But those were hardly the point.

            The point was, he knew when he was being watched and that’s exactly what was happening right that moment. He just couldn’t figure out from _where_ he was being watched. It certainly wasn’t helping he was currently standing in the middle of a _very_ busy Market Center. At around noon every day the Market burst into a flurry of activity as workers came to snag lunch from the venders or the mothers of wee ones flew about gathering things to prepare dinner and pick up other odds and ends necessary for whatever matrimonial bliss and family life required. The large domed cavern with its strategically placed skylights and vents was both brightly lit and seething with life and activity. To find the _one_ set of eyes that just _happened_ to be watching the supposedly clandestine Spy Master was a task that would cow most ordinary dwarrow. Happily, Nori was always up for a challenge.

            He started easily enough, glancing around at all the mothers, laborers, and merchants. Trying to find the most obvious onlookers. All that accomplished was a very uncomfortable exchange with a newlywed couple as the groom was hardly appeased with the hasty apologies he was receiving for Nori’s obvious perusal of his little ‘peach puff’. Didn’t help much that the tri-domed dwarf insisted he’d seen a hogs asses that were better looking than the ‘peach pit’ he’s chalked himself to. With a bit of fast talk and a swift run he’d been sure he’d lost the gaze and the noxious couple but the itch in the middle of his shoulder blades had only intensified. Seeing as he was now verily sure he was not only being watched but followed, Nori decided quick enough, nothing risked nothing gained. With a little jaunty whistle he was off out of the Center and through one of the little known and little used service tunnels that led deeper into the mountain. Rushing around the first bend he continued his little tune from under his breathe, “With a batter and a clatter you can shatter every platter…” and lay in wait for the deviant who thought they’d best _the best_ Spy Master and Master Thief of Arda (he was cheerfully omitting the hobbit burglar as she hardly qualified, now as a married lass and all she was scarcely in the profession anymore).

            “But the Moon slept till Sterrenday!” the piping voice so lively and high pitched at about the height of his knee sent the dwarf into an apoplexy as he yowled and leapt out into the corridor he’d been glancing down. Falling hard onto his much abused arse the lad stared in shocked awe at the creature before him before his usual wily smile made its way back to his previously slack jawed face.

***

            There were a number of things Nori had found left him feeling positively gleeful in his long life, and hopefully ever lengthening one. Seeing that intellectual joy light his younger brother up whenever he’d been able to pilfer a particularly thick tomb from some high and mighty lordling who couldn’t even read gave him an intense satisfaction. Watching Dwalin rant and scream as he was, once again, fouled in his attempts to catch the flighty thief was something that sent the middle son of Vori into a near early grave from lack of breathe as he tried to contain his giggling. And catching the soft looks in one of his best friend’s eyes as he gazed down at his wee hobbit wife, half awed at her presence at his side, on their wedding day had brought a dampness into his own hazel eyes. But what he saw now, standing in the middle of the Throne Room of Erebor, on this day the day the Valar had seen fit to send him a _second_ wee apprentice… _this_ was worth all the gold in his share of the mountain alone.

            On the far side of the room, cowering behind a pair of stone seats that flanked the main throne was, apparently, the entire Durin line. Kíli had seemed to flip himself around the back of his usual seat of power, and was now crouched there with his back to the seat, peaking around the stone every now and again to gage the wreckage that was taking place. On the other side was Fíli who seemed to have tripped over his own seat in his hurried escape and was now curled into a ball clutching his abused ears and (was he really? Nori turned his head to the side, yep) his balls in defense. Finally, the King Under the Mountain, Thorin Oakenshield, son of Thrór, son of Thráin, had slide across the floor behind the thrones and curled himself into a defensive crouch with his Orcrist drawn, blue eyes bleak as they centered on the happenings of his court.

            Standing _on_ the gold and bejeweled throne where Durin’s Kings had sat for centuries before and would again for centuries after the greatest calamity of the Age, Smaug the terrible wyrm, was that very same wee hobbit lass he’d just been thinking about. She stood in the garb of a High Lady of the Mountain (sparkling in the torch light as the jewels of her station declared her emissary of peace and friendship within and without the mountain), decked in the warm brocade, a charming rust color that complimented her flashing amber eyes if he said so himself (which he did seeing he’d been the one who’d suggested the bolts that had been gifted to her on the previous Durin’s Day by her besotted husband). Her black hair cascaded about her in a frenzy of shiny dark chaos, sections braided and bejeweled in sigils of her married and Lady’s status. And in her wee hand she clasped the silver grey beard of one of the most powerful beings to walk the world as she berated the daft old man.

            “FIVE YEARS, NOT A SINGLE SIGN OR WORD FROM YOU! YOU LEAVE ME HERE TO CLEAN UP YOUR BLOODY MESS. TO KEEP THESE IDIOT DWARROW FROM KILLING THEMSELVES AND STARTING A _SECOND_ BLOODY WAR WITH MEN AND ELVES. A HOBBIT LASS THAT WAS ONCE PROPER _BEFORE_ THE LIKES OF YOU CAME _SAUNTERING_ UP MY BAGSHOT, TO CORRAL A GAGGLE OF PIG HEADED MULE MALES! AND _NOW_ YOU RETURN AND TELL ME YOU’VE NOT ONLY LOST ME MY PREVIOUS HOME BUT THE ONLY CREATURE LEFT TO ME IN ALL OF HOBBITON THAT MEANS A FLAMING WEED-EATERS _BALLS_ TO ME _SOMEWHERE_ IN THIS THRICE CURSED MOUNTAIN?! IS _THAT_ WHAT YOU’RE TELLING ME GANDALF!?” The huffing was all that saved the old Tharkûn from a death by octave as she’d been rising with every ringing shriek.

            And the squirming poppet in Nori’s arms cheerful exclamation of “Auntie Bilbo!” was all that kept the rest of the mountain in tact as it seemed the hobbit burglar was very much intent on taking their newly restored home apart boulder by boulder in search of the tiny lad. With a bright chuckle the former thief lowered the abnormally _tiny_ creature to the ground and allowed the curl black haired lad to run his stubby little legs off as he ran into the suddenly waiting arms of his Auntie. The moment the lad was in her arms Bilbo’s entire being seemed to evaporate into the ether. The high red flags of rage fell to a light flush of joy, biting amber fires dulled to soft honey hues of loving consideration, tightly pinched banshee shriek hole returned to a plump pink mouth that was fashioned specifically to sooth hurts and brush across foreheads as it was now.

            “Frodo, my dear boy. What happened to you? Why didn’t you stay with Gandalf? You gave us all quite a fright.” The only person close enough to the suddenly released wizard was Nori as he grumbled under his breath, “I wasn’t half as frightened for the lad as for _myself_.” He was smart enough to merely offer a hand up to the felled Istari as they watched the tiny hobbit continue to check over the even tinier hobbit.

            “I’m sorry Auntie Bilbo. But I wanted to see where the dragon used to live! And then there were _so many_ dwarfeses. And then the one with the star face was walking through and he looked so weird with his creepy face and hair! (“Hey!” Nori’s indignant exclamation was thoroughly ignored) I followed him and then he started whistling about Sterrenday! And I just _knew_ he had to be one of _your_ dwarfeses and I started to say hi but he got scared and jumped clear across a cave and then he asked how I got here and thought we should find you and now we’re here and I _missed you so much!!!_ ” the lad was breathing a bit harder at the end of that but he’d jumped into his Auntie’s arms again and was happily being cuddled against the plump lass.

            As all this was happening the Grey Wizard had made his quick exit, stating in passing to the offended thief, “Remember this lad, if you remember nothing else. It may save your life one day. The best tactic against an angry female hobbit is thrusting a tiny fauntling in her way. They’re all mothers at heart and it will give you plenty of time to make your escape.” And so it did as it wasn’t till dinner that Bilbo realized she wasn’t quite done berating the gamy wizard and had missed her chance for at least another five to ten years it seemed.


	2. Fiíli and Kíli

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Run away, run away  
> Run away and save your life  
> Run away, run away  
> Run away if you want to survive
> 
> Real McCoy – Run Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two for the price of one!

            It didn’t take too long to settle Frodo firmly into Mountain life. The first things Fíli and Kíli asked when they’d come back to themselves after the display in the Throne Room was if hobbits came any _smaller_ and when Bilbo would get around to making one with Bofur so they could see it. This had, of course, thoroughly embarrassed the middle-aged hobbit and she’d near expired on the spot, had it not been for Lady Dís and her swift lesson in etiquette. Frodo was preciously tiny and instantly won the hearts of the three Lady’s of the Mountain. Dís was hard pressed not to constantly coo over the lad and Vaíl near trampled her own son to get a hold of the tiny hobbit. Gimli was curious about the tiny tot but terrified at the same time that he’d smush the wee thing. It wasn’t often you’d find the pair alone and when that happened it was clearly against the young dwarrow’s will.

            Likewise, Thorin and Dwalin had taken issue with the size of the lad, questioning his age and wondering how something so tiny was walking and talking so bloody well! Dwarrow children were barely weaned at that size but this little bit of dark curls and big blue eyes was chattering almost incessantly. Glóin found the wee one a brilliant little companion as Frodo had been brought up to be a proper hobbit, thus exhibiting the correct manners that would make him a victim to the zealous father/husband’s stories. Óin was quickly charmed with the lad once he fell asleep on the third rendition of Gimli’s mighty first tooth! Balin and Ori found a thirsty brain hidden under all those curls and instantly made an elaborate schedule to make full use of the eager mind. Ori was particularly taken with the lad since he continued to ask the shy scribe to read the _Accounts of Thorin’s Company and the Quest for Erebor._

            But of all the dwarrow, the young hobbit was fondest of his new Uncles. Bombur was completely enraptured with spoiling the lad, feeding him all manner of sweets and food whenever the wee thing stumbled into his kitchens. There wasn’t a day the larger dwarf didn’t come home with some new treat for the lad. The pair would munch in the kitchen till the tiny one would fall right to sleep in his plate. Bifur was whittling away like some half demented toymaker; the tiny tot was swimming in new toys and tiny miniatures. His favorites being the ones that depicted the Company or parts of his Aunt’s stories about the adventure she’d been on. When he wasn’t making him toys the grumbling dwarf would be sitting on the ground playing with the lad, making all the right dragon and troll noises as they reenacted the desolation of Smaug. Nori, an honorary Uncle on account of him being Bilbo’s best friend and the first dwarrow to actually converse with the lad, would take him on day trips all the time. Sometimes three or four times a week! Neither would tell Bilbo where or what they were doing but the mischievous grin on the baby hobbit’s face was enough to make the proud Auntie over look it all.

            The only hiccup they’d had so far was Frodo’s reaction to Bofur. The lad hadn’t taken to the fact his Auntie was married. At first it had manifested as a form of staring contest. The lad would follow his Auntie around and stare harshly at the dwarf when he came anywhere near them. If Bofur tried to place his hands on Bilbo she suddenly found herself with a lap full of hobbit. And at night the lad would whimper so pitiably she’d melt and stay with the lad through the night. This was making for a very frustrated Bofur as he’d barely any time with his lovely wife and he did _so_ enjoy her company. As a result the pair had decided to take a day for them and Bilbo was to leave the lad with Fíli and Kíli. The pair was eager to encourage their budding relationship with their tiny cousin and cheerfully offered to watch him. It had been agreed upon under the condition they kept inside the mountain and within the Royal Wing. There was precious little the lads could get up to in the inner sanctum of the Mountain. Or so she’d thought.

            “RUN FÍLI!!!” Kíli’s voice bounced off the caverns for miles as dwarrow of all class and creed stopped what they were doing to find what was apparently attacking the Durin line. Or, in the case of the dwarrow down one particular hallway, dive out of the way of a pair of idiots driving down the halls at breakneck speeds.

            “HOW IS SHE DOING THAT!? WE’RE RUNNING AT TOP SPEED AND SHE’S ONLY WALKING BUT SHE’S STILL _RIGHT BEHIND US_!” Fíli’s shouted comment came out in something much more high pitched as he and his brother turned a corner, and in so doing catching a glimpse of the hobbit Auntie as she stomped after them through the throng of curious bystanders. At this point, everyone in the mountain had heard of what the wee creature had _dared_ do to a _wizard_ of all creatures. Most didn’t believe it but at the fire that glittered and spat from molten gold eyes and the fanged smile she was flashing as she walked by the rest of the dwarrow nation, it was becoming more and more likely that this slip of a female was actually a lot hardier than originally hypothesized.

            That wasn’t helping the lads at the moment though, as they were continuing to run for some form of cover. They found a supposed sanctuary in the arms of their rather surprised mother. Lady Dís had been walking with Master Balin, discussing the possible expansion of the Weavers Guild, as Bilbo’s people were used to some rather soft pieces of fabric she referred to as silk. It wasn’t the hardiest but it was an elegant work and the Lady was becoming rather fond of it as she had ordered a bolt sent to her earlier in the year. Their conversation was cut short as the boys careened into the pair, each grasping one of their dear mother’s arms and hiding behind the dwarrowdam. “What’s all this then?! Has Thorin threatened to throw you from the parapet again? Or id Dwalin after you for some shield training? You know you need it so there’s no sense hiding behind me.”

            “No! Mother you have to save us from Aunt Bilbo!” Kíli whimpered as he heard the distinct clap of bare feet on stone. The only time Bilbo wasn’t silent footed was when she _wanted_ you to know there was no escape.

            “What? Why? What does Bilbo want with you boys?” The Lady was thoroughly confused. The lads were safest when they were with their honorary Auntie. Hell, there were times the hobbit got between them and her, they weren’t often, but they happened.

            “We may have accidentally taught Frodo something and she’s taking it entirely out of hand!” Fíli was sharply elbowed by his wide-eyed brother as Kíli realized the mistake he’d made well before it was finished.

            Confusion clouded the brow of the Princess for a moment as she switched her position to be grasping at her son’s instead of the other way around. Sensing the change in their predicament the pair began to whimper again. “Exaclty what did you _teach_ young Frodo?”

            Kíli had the sense to stay quiet and stare at the ground. Fíli… not so much, “Nothing he wouldn’t learn on his own after a while! It’s not our fault the book landed on my bad leg! I hardly meant to scream _that_ in the lad’s hearing!” and at that point it didn’t matter _what_ the lad had taught the wee one, as it was obviously something truly dreadful.

            But dreadful or not, it was just a word. What could have Bilbo so riled over a single word? She could easily teach Frodo not to use it anymore. “Why not just reprimand the child then? What aren’t you boys telling me?”

            “Frodo called Bofur a ‘orc-rutting, cum gobbling, half gobblin ponce’,” the soft tone of the voice was sharply contrasted with the gleaming teeth as the hobbit lass came up upon the dwarrow. Her arms were crossed as she glared down at the little pranksters where they lay in their mother’s firm grasp. “Exactly what did that ‘book’ ever do to you Fíli?”

            With nothing more than a deep breath in and a large one out, expelling all maternal feeling with it, their loving and dear mother threw them backwards as she swung around and glared down at the suddenly felled lads, “You did _what_!?”

            Without further ado the lads were racing again, narrowly avoiding their mother’s clawed grasp as they went. Really? What kind of children had she raised that they were now misplacing _people_?! It happened suddenly, on the next turn in the halls leading to the outside of Erebor. Fíli hit the ground oddly and collapsed to the floor. Kíli stopped and turned to his felled brother only to hear the _slap slap_ of bare feet once more. Stranded blue eyes met fearful brown as Fíli waved away his able bodied brother, “Run! Run and save-” he didn’t even finish his statement before the younger lad had disappeared. So much for brotherly love.

            Turning to face his fate like a Durin, the blonde heir sent a quick prayer to Mahal and then promptly began blubbering when Bilbo reappeared. “I swear we’ll find him Bilbo! And we’ll never loose him again! We’ll – ”

            “You’re damn right you won’t! He’s never to be left alone with the pair of you stone brained, weed eating, orc grooming – ” the rant cut short suddenly.

            Open wide blue eyes, Fíli was astonished to see his Auntie staring past him and into the curious face of one Gimli as he stood there with Kíli at his back. Neither had been in any state to understand what Gandalf had whispered to Nori in the hall the first day, but, as had been noted multiple times before, Kíli was the one with the brains. The red bearded lad was grasping a wee sleeping hobbit in his arms, softly and surely, smiling through his gruff continence as little Frodo clasped tiny hands into the braids of his hair.

            In two steps Bilbo had traveled over the prone heir and was detaching her tiny ward from the young dwarrow. With a smile that had the young Gimli flushing as red as his beard, she moved back the way she came. As the younger dwarrow came up to help their felled friend they heard the eerily reverberating voice of their little Auntie as she softly called back in a demented singsong voice, “Don’t think this is over lads.”

            With that as a warning they decided to take the chance they’d been given and ran for the gates. The mines were useless if Bilbo decided she _really_ wanted at them. She’d get her husband to find the pair. But if they could make it to Dale or even Esgaroth, they’d be safe for at least the three days it would take for the hobbit to send their mother’s after their sad hides. And three days reprieve was three days more than they were hoping for.


	3. Bofur

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Could it be the little wrinkle over your nose  
> When you make your angry face  
> That makes me wanna just take off all your clothes  
> And sex you all over the place  
> Could it be the lil' way you storm around  
> That makes me wanna tear you down  
> Baby, I ain't sure, but one thing that I do know is
> 
> Every time you scream at me  
> I wanna kiss you  
> Baby when you put your hands on me  
> I wanna touch you  
> And when we get to arguing  
> Just gotta kiss you  
> Baby, I don't know why it's like that  
> But you're just so damn sexy  
> When you're mad
> 
> Ne-Yo – When You’re Mad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the only reason, I can foresee, for the E in the rating.

            Bofur wasn’t having a good month. Ordinarily the cheery miner adored children, and he was adored back. His toys were instant paths to the hearts of the wee creatures and his happy disposition endeared him, not only to the tykes but their mothers as often as not. He’d been very popular back in Ered Luin running his little shop with Bifur (it hadn’t translated into sales but hey never wanted for friendly company). So it completely boggled that the one child he actually wanted, _needed_ , to get along with hated his squirming guts.

            It had been a month since little Frodo had been spirited away from Hobbiton by the crafty Grey Devil and deposited in the loving arms of _his_ Bilbo. Of course, she’d ceased to be _his_ Bilbo once the lad had lain full claims to her heart and soul, though Bofur could understand. With children came a large amount of work and responsibility. And the fauntling came with not a little extra baggage considering the terrible way his parents had passed and then the afterwards with the scuffle over who would take the lad. Many of his relations had been willing but hadn’t the means to care for another child, while others with the means didn’t want the tyke. He’d been shunted from household to household, settled with the Sackville-Baggins when Gandalf had visited the Shire to check in on Bilbo’s old home (after the first attempt to take it over had been thwarted by the annoyed wizard he’d made a habit of popping by to ensure the continued condition of the home). He’d been shocked to find the tiny lad curled at the foot of Bilbo’s old bed clutching a tiny book the faunt had later revealed to be the storybook his Auntie Bilbo had used to read him when he was littler. Disturbed by the sadness in the tiny hobbit he’d taken matters into his own hands, as he was apt to do, and taken the lad off on an ‘adventure’ to visit with his Auntie, an Auntie who instantly claimed the lad as her own.   

            Instantly the lives of the mountain were changed, at least for a bit till the lad was more comfortable with his new lot in life. Most changed their schedules willingly and others at the fierce glare of their trio of feminine joys. The Ur clan was enraptured with the idea of a wee one in the fold and cheerfully made whatever time was necessary to make his transition easier. So when Bilbo suggested more group meals at regular times would actually aid in the lad’s development Bombur hadn’t even paused before beginning a regimen of Company Breakfasts and Dinners (all of which were enforced by the Lady Dís (“and that meant you too Thorin, or so help me I’ll feed you to the next wyrm that wandered this way!”). The other five meals a growing hobbit needed would be met with individual members throughout the day. Fíli and Kíli had drafted Gimli into a bout of playtime before second breakfast (this having the advantage of keeping the pair from their duties _and_ turning them into test subjects for some of Bombur’s delicious gourmet experiments). Afterwards, Balin would normally take the lad in hand through lunch, accompanied with Ori more often than not, engaging the wee one in study. At tea he would meet with Dori and Óin, the old healer insisting on daily check ups, having very little understanding of hobbit growth he wished to ensure himself everything was going off without a fault, Dori being the best tea distributer in the mountain. Bilbo would normally be released from her own duties at this point and would reclaim the lad for a nice romp around the parapets where he’d find his favorite guard, Dwalin and the pair would talk about gruesome nonsense the entire time. He’d then allow himself to be carted into the Mountain for dinner with the rest of the Company. Afterwards bath time and family time. The hobbits would repair to their rooms with the Ur clan who got their private time with the adoptee. Supper was eaten as Bilbo read the lad a tale or two and then bed.

            The only kink in their familial bliss seemed to be the lad’s sheer disgust in his married Uncle (though he absolutely refused Bofur the title, rather calling him ‘Mister Dwarf’ when he was being polite, ‘Weed-Eater’ (thank you Fíli and Kíli) when he wasn’t). But not a bump the toy-maker was willing to derail his previously peaceful and loving household. It was only natural for there to be some tension in the lad, after all, Bofur _had_ ‘taken’ the wee things Auntie from him, though he was more than happy to share. He tried to get himself on the lad’s good side from day one, showering him in little gizmos and toys he’d conceived for the adventurous tyke. All of which were thanked for but rested in a cupboard unused in the lad’s room. He made it appoint to sit next to or very near Frodo at each meal, trying to engage him in conversation. Sometimes he’d even come up from observing the mines or watching the wee shop he and Bifur had set up in the market during outlandish times of the day to have tea or lunch with the child. He was ignored for his efforts and Mahal forbid he try and horn in on _any_ time the child was near Bilbo. He’d instantly jump into the lass’s arms and just glare at the miner for all his little body was worth (something that had near sent Dwalin over the wall a time or two as he tried to stop laughing at the miner’s predicament). It seemed the faunt had absolutely no intension of sharing his family.

            Except the lad didn’t actually have a problem in the sharing department, however. Young Frodo went around calling all the rest of the Company ‘Uncle’. He even ran into Thorin’s Meeting Chamber during a trade negotiation and clambered into the fierce King’s lap trying to show his ‘Uncle Toto’ the pretty picture ‘Auntie D’ had helped him paint. Of course, the highly decorated majesty showed the proper amount of enrapture and praise before the lad cheerily pecked him on the bearded cheek and scampered off (if the King then moved to threaten the lives of all present with a fierce disembowelment, no one really cared to remember (save Dwalin, who’s gut still gave a twinge at the thought of the mighty elbow slamming into his chuckling gut)). The lad spent a good deal of his time with the Durin lads and their cousin, possibly the only members of their group that weren’t deemed worthy of ‘Uncle’ besides the hatted miner, they were ‘cousins’. As in “Cousin Kiki and Fifi said if Gigi wanted we could go to the kitchens and ask Uncle Bombom for cake!” And the lad’s absolute, all hold barred, _favorite_ ‘Uncle’ turned out to be the single dwarrow Bofur hated in equal measure to his affection, Nori. The bastard had always been a favorite of his hobbit and now it seemed he was, once again, the favorite of a _second_ hobbit who’s affections he was very much hoping to gain. Thick as _thieves_ the pair were, and if he wasn’t much mistaken that’s exactly what Nori was hoping in the first place.

            But the obvious favoritism was something Bofur had been hoping he’d be able to benefit from. As with most of his more brilliant ideas concerning his hobbit, Bofur went to Nori for conference. The lad had suggested some one on one would probably help the pair bond more than gate crashing someone else meal or time, and Bilbo eagerly agreed, Amber eyes dancing in just that way Bofur could never say no to. But, as tended to happen every so often, the most brilliant of plans met with reality with a wild tussle and blew up in the faces of the most honorable intentions. Purhaps Bofur should have asked Nori or Bilbo just _how_ he should spend time with the fauntling as, it turned out, taking him on an extensive tour of the mining facilities wasn’t the wisest choice he’d had. It had worked wonders on Bilbo; she’d been thoroughly enchanting and curious about all the sparkles and the mineral shafts running through the Mountain (and he’d been thoroughly enraptured in the way the fire from this gem or that would fall on the dark tresses and the peach skin). Tiny lads, as it turned, weren’t so curious (and, later, when Bilbo was pressed, she’d admit she could care two licks about the mineral veins and diamond caverns, she’d just enjoyed the eager expression on her dwarf’s face at the time) and young Frodo was rolling his big blue eyes and had a scowl he must have been learning from Thorin on his tiny face. It was about lunch time and Bofur was about to call it a bust after he’d taken the wee one to the luminescent crystal caverns (they supplied the light sources for the entire mountain. They glowed due to a kind of fungus that got caught in the beginnings of the crystals formulation. If you caught them soon enough you could make them different colors based on the mineral deposit you dropped onto the growth) and had gotten barely a glance of curious intent (which was completely feigned as Frodo was actually one of the most curious little cusses to be found in the East or West). He’d been about to suggest the pair find their way back to Dori’s Tea Emporium when everything’s gone to pot.

            Exiting the crystal cavern Frodo uttered the first sentence since he’d left Fíli and Kíli that morning, “Wat’s that?” the big blues were widening as he tried to pick a bare foot off the ground and then the next.

            Bofur frowned, “Wat’s wa-” he was cut off as he began to feel the rumble through his own boots. Looking around he saw the rumble was actually causing some larger stones to jump and fall from the ceiling of the hall. He grabbed up the now terrified faunt and began to run for the exit. But, as life was want, the floor began to crack and a schism burst open under the pair, sending them down into pitch darkness for a good ten feet before they landed with a big wet SPLASH!

            Bofur’d kept a strong hand on the frightened child, barely registering the equally fierce grasp of tiny hands on his own tunic, and propelled the pair and into the air moments later. He was breathing a sigh of relief at their lucky landing when the tiny hobbit began screaming and crying as he thrashed in the water like it was trying to devour his bloody soul. Bofur tried to calm him but gave it up for lost and started paddling the pair to the overhand not far to their left he could just make out in the dark. This didn’t stop the keening but it did cease the thrashing. The miner was boggled but did what he would do for anyone having a row in his arms, he held Frodo tighter, giving him something to ground himself, and rubbed his back in a rhythmic circle, whispering reassurance as he did. Slowly the lad calmed and sneezed before shivering and having a large damp hat deposited onto his head.

            Looking up Frodo saw the dwarf who’d taken his Auntie, the last person who wanted him, and made her his own. The weirdly cheerful one, happy even when Frodo’s tiny world was entirely centered on the one creature they’d both declared _theirs_. Frodo had had so much taken from him and now there were these last two arms that he could call home and this weed-eating dwarf was taking them away. Who’d just saved him from the water that had taken his parents, the dark ones that reached out in his nightmares like hands and grabbed at his feet and dragged him away from Aunt Bilbo as she tried to swim after him. The thick ones that suffocated his mama and papa in his other nightmares as he cried and watched from the shore where his feet were glued and raw where he tried to claw them apart to reach his family. He’d saved him and then he’d held him like daddy would after he’d had a bad dream or when the other faunts would tease him for reading when they were off searching for elves (never mind the elves never came this far off the Road, they still swore they’d find one). He’d even given Frodo his hat to stay warm, and Frodo hadn’t been very nice at all (not even before when he’d been showing him all the pretty stuff in the mines or telling him how to make crystals with special waters and plants!).

            As the big blue eyes began to well up again Bofur panicked, “Hey, hey, hey, it’ll be alrigh’ lad. I’ll see us outta here, you just wait a tic an’ I’ll ‘ave ya back to ye Auntie Bilbo ‘fore ye can say ‘lunch’ right then?”

            This didn’t help anything as Frodo felt even guiltier and just threw himself into a body hug as his tiny arms wrapped around the miner’s neck and he cried over and over in a damp chant of ‘I’m sorry’. Bofur, who wasn’t fluent in distressed sobbing child, just went back to hushing and rocking as he had before till the tiny one calmed and then the dwarf said it was time they high tailed it outta there and they were off to find an exit.

            Now dwarrow are very skilled in their mountains. Miners in particular seemed to resonate with the stone, Bofur being no exception. Given enough time he could find his way through the mines and back to Erebor easily, even feast on the natural fare available in the dark tunnels seeing as he’d had to survive a fare share of cave-ins a time or two before (though none in Erebor as of yet). So he was hardly concerned, and the lad was responding to the curious way he was tapping on the walls and listening in the dark for signals from the stone that, legend told, he and his kind had been hewn from. It was a pleasant hour and a half, with a lovely little snack of some curious blue mushrooms that tasted a wee bit nutty in Frodo’s opinion before the pair were saved from the days traveling through the dark and thrown into the rage of a different beastly experience entirely.

            Bofur before Frodo heard the clattering, this time, but only because the wee one was nonstop with his chatter and questions. He’d even begun asking all the ones he’d been holding back in the mineral caverns above. So when Bifur suddenly burst through the ceiling with a barrage of growled Khuzdul cursing and ill tidings being laced on his idiot cousin’s head, it was only Frodo who’d yelped in terror and clutched his new hero’s leg in fear. Bofur had readied his pocket knife (the only weaponry to make it down there with him seein’ as it was a mite difficult to clasp a wee one _and_ a mattock while being ricocheted down a hidden shaft) but relaxed as he recognized the growl, only to tense again when he made heads or tails of what his cousin was saying. _She’s storming the mines and roarin’ somethin’ fierce. The lads are callin’ it the second comin’ o’ Smaug hisself! I’d almost hoped ye dead fur yer own sake._

            “Well then, take this,” Bofur picked up the wide eyed faunt and thrust him towards his cousin, “an’ I’ll go about makin’ a home fer meself down here an’ abouts. It was right lovely bein’ married an’ all. Tell yer Auntie I had a grand time and perhaps in a few centuries I’ll look ‘er up after she’d calmed a bit, alrigh’?”

            The terrified toymaker found himself suddenly hostage to a once more crying fauntling as Frodo began to wail, “Don’t leave!!!” So with a sigh the hatted dwarf went to the rope and began the long climb up to meet his doom. Once breaking the surface he found himself relieved of a tiny body and helped into the brightly lit cavern outside the crystal mines. The faces of his concerned workers, one with a brightly purpling eye, came into view right before his wee wife did. As he turned to see her she was clutching her tiny faunt to her body and cooing over the disheveled appearance. His hat was carried away with the lad as she laid one long look at him, from bared head to booted toe and walked off. He wasn’t sure what that meant but he was assured by some of his married fellows it wasn’t good. It wasn’t till later that night in their room that he discovered how ‘not good’ it was.

            He’d went home, washed the grime from the lake and unused caverns away and had spent the rest of the long hours pacing their room, waiting for the inevitable. Bofur wasn’t sure what the traditional retribution for putting a person’s child at risk and nearly drowning them was but he was pretty sure it was ugly. And he wasn’t sure he didn’t actually deserve everything he’d get, if he’d only been _thinking_ a bit more than ‘MAKE HIM LIKE ME’ he’d have realized the _mines_ were no bloody place fro a wee one. He should have taken the lad to the bloody toyshop in the market! What’s the worst that could happen there? He’d get a splinter in his wee fingers. An’ that couldn’t equate to more than a slap on the wrist in parenting could it?

            Just as he’d worked himself into a right mess the door to slammed into the wall and then back into the jam, the love of his soon to be short life had arrived. “What part of ‘spend time with him, he just needs to get to know you,’ translated to ‘take him into a bloody mine _and get lost for hours on end_!’? _What_ were you _thinking!?_ He’s barely a _decade_ and you take him to a place I can hardly stomach _you_ working?! How do you think I’d have _lived_ knowing the pair of you had _never been found!?_ The two most important people in my life _gone_ in one fell swoop! You, you, you _damn fool of a Took!_ ” the first swing was easily caught, not really meaning to land in any case, his wee wife wasn’t actually one for violence after all. The next easier still, and suddenly Bofur found himself with his arms full of heaving, trembling, hobbit.

            Now, one other symptom of suddenly adopting children who had lost their parents so terribly, and thus, were prone to nightmares, was the sudden lack in a particular area of matrimonial normalcy. Having themselves interrupted most nights of the week by tiny cries, and once by a full on bellowing of ‘STAY AWAY FROM MY AUNTIE YOU ORC-RUTTING, CUM GOBBLING, HALF GOBBLIN PONCE!’, (Thank you _Fíli and Kíli!_ ) tended to take something of the erotic out of a marriage if ye catch me meanin’. So Bofur, not exactly young but far from the end of his prime, was a wee bit starved for more than just the wee ones affections as it turned out. Not that he was ever very good at ignoring when his tiny wife had _that_ look about her. Her cheeks flushed a ruby that joined across the nose, the tips of her ears blushing as well, lips ruby with the excess blood flow and from the munching she’d been giving them earlier, body taught and trembling with suppressed emotion as she tried desperately to retain some form of proprietary control over herself, bosom heaving in her dress as she failed, abysmally. Compounded by being pressed right tight up to the starved miner’s body, was it any question he suddenly couldn’t help the draw of those flashing gold eyes as they simultaneous tried to burn him and staunch the concerned tears that rode at the corners? Even if there were a fair few who’d call him five kinds of fool the lad took the chance to have a final taste of his favored meal before he was put to death and claimed those rosy lips for his own one last time.

            It, obviously, wasn’t so simple. Bilbo was beyond the pale in her rage. She’d thought for the better part of two hours she’d lost her tiny family before it could even begin. And all at her own suggestion, no matter what Nori kept denying, if they weren’t found safe and soun it would be her bloody fault. So after hours of cuddling her Frodo and reassuring herself he was no more the worse for wear she’d been fully intending to take some of that misplaced fear out on her pour husbands head (who sent children into a _mine_ by the Mother’s blessed hands). But she’d found herself damn near choked as the same fear came rushing up seeing him there whole and timidly waiting for her. The timidity had sparked her and the rush of fear had fueled her as she’d ranted and as she continued to fight the grip at her wrists and the lips brushing across her own. It was only the persistent soft grazing (and the _month_ of abstinence) that had her suddenly snapping from extremes. Suddenly it wasn’t a fight she was after, rather a claiming.

            Bofur was only given one warning to the change in his wife’s demeanor. Her wrists suddenly went lax and her lips went soft under his own. He was happy for all of a tic as he thought he’d won this confrontation, and then those lax wrists suddenly snapped from his softened grip and a very powerful, for all it was plump and soft, leg came around his own and felled him. Before he could so much as gasp the suddenly displaced breath a pair of formidable thighs was straddling his waist. Those eyes that had been spitting golden fire moments before were slit as she lowered herself onto him and grasped his loose braids before yanking him up to lay waste to his mouth. His hands found purchase on a pert ass he’d missed and the growl that reverberated through the fierce creature his wife had suddenly become and into himself sent shivers down his spine, and it was a fair thing to suggest he might not know so much if it was in fear or lust. Those plump rubies he’d been enjoying were suddenly biting, literally, as tiny teeth ripped at his bottom lip and a harsh tongue plundered his mouth. Any attempt to gain a level hand was met by a reverberating growl and a yank to the braids with a nip to the tongue or lip. He lay prone as his wee wife did as she would with his very alert, very curious body.

            When she shifted to reposition herself in a more engulfing pose as she dragged her nimble fingers through his suddenly very much loose hair that his curiosity made itself known. The brush of hot under silks seeping into his own cloth trousers against his rigid member released a groan from the trapped miner as his wife continued to ravage his mouth. Without missing a beat she whipped herself up into a sitting pose and ground into him, resulting in a fierce yowling that was part pain, all pleasure. Once more he found himself captive to those slit eyes as Bilbo continued her swaying motion, hips riding him into a stupor, that suddenly stopped. He remembered, suddenly, how weak his little minx used to be, before Nori had begun her daily training (meant to keep her safe from assassination, _not_ torment her poor husband). He took back every bad thing he’d ever said about that rat bastard, however, when those saintly fingers reached forward and made swifter work of the ties of his tunic and breeches than he’d made getting them on.

            Suddenly, with little recollection to how he found himself falling into a cushioned bed, very much naked, and once again straddled by a now mostly naked wife. She’d stopped at the shift, so he was now watching as the wee lover as she all but fell out of her tight shift’s bodice, made all the tauter by the corseted waist below them that remained tied. Heaving bosom, barely hiding the naked flesh beneath from his gaze was driving him round the bend, but the heat from the naked flesh that she was keeping suspended above his own was far more maddening. He kept thrusting up only to feel the thighs around him clench and ride the motion out (no longer did we have an inexperienced rider, the lass rode a pony to Dale nearly daily). All his bucking and keening was doing naught, all that he was receiving for his troubles was a slit eyes grin, like some cat that had gotten the canary _and_ the cream. He watched, enraptured as suddenly that pink tongue came out and licked plump lips as she fell onto him. Satisfaction and the feel of moist heat contracting around his plunging member were almost enough to knock the sensation of biting teeth in his neck.

            With a snarl of his own he twisted the pair, having had quite enough of this teasing from the little wench he’d married. The first thing he did away with was the bodice of the pretty while shift and began to leave a few bite marks of his own as he grasped the quivering hips around him and slammed further and further into her soft cavern, all of which illicit a mewl from his delirious wife. But she wasn’t quite ready to release her hold on the game; she wrapped her thighs around the rutting hips and arched at his next thrust meeting him in ferocity, nails digging into the head at her breast. Her shriek near masked his own yelled release as she contracted around his aching length, her hands digging into his scalp; his leaving finger bruises down her hip and thigh. The pair collapsed into a gasping pile of over heated flesh.

            It was a little time later, as they half dozed in their afterglow that Bofur moved up and over his dazed little minx and claimed her lips in a sweet kiss once more. He then wrapped her up in his arms and covered the pair as she fell apart in an all-together different fashion. Her tears heaving and salty as he kissed them away and rubbed her back in circles, calming her fears and reassuring her she wasn’t free of him quite yet.

***

            The next morning saw breakfast with the rest of the Company, young Frodo happily ensconced in his Uncle Nori’s lap as he shoveled bacon into his tiny maw. As the pair sat across the two the tiny tot looked up at his Aunt and his new friend with big sad blue eyes, “I’m sorry for all the trouble yesterday Auntie Bilbo, please don’t hurt Uncle Bofur anymore!”

            The dwarf spat what small amount of tea he’d drank as his lungs heaved and Bilbo’s face turned an alarming shade of red as she gapped at the tiny lad. Nori near doubled over in laughter as he patted his little apprentice on the head and wheezed out, “I think it’s okay lad. Uncle Bofur actually like’s it when Aunt Bilbo ‘punishes’ him.”

            “NORI!” the echo of two enraged parental figures chased the wise thief down the halls. Wise not for running but for depositing the inquisitive tot (who immediately turned a glare on Bofur and demanded, “Why do _you_ get the _fun_ punishment?!”) in his scandalized Aunt’s arms before taking off. Only a fool doesn't heed a wizard's warning after all.  


	4. Nori

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm in a little bit of trouble  
> And I'm in real deep  
> From the beginning to the end  
> He was no more than a friend to me
> 
> The thought is makin' me hazy  
> I think I better sit down  
> Cause like the sweetest serenade  
> Bet he knows he's got it made with me
> 
> Twisting round on a carousel  
> This speeds' too much to stop  
> One second I'm thinkin' I'm feeling the lust  
> And then I feel a lot
> 
> Ooh that man is like a flame  
> And ooh that man plays me like a game  
> My only sin is I can't win  
> Ooh I wanna love that man  
> Ooh that man is on my list  
> And ooh that man I wanna kiss  
> My only sin is I can't win  
> Ooh I wanna love that man
> 
> Caro Emerald – That Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes it feels as though Nori's the only one who actually understands our hobbit. It's not going to save him though.

            He knew this was going to happen eventually. That didn’t stop him from being completely surprised when it did.

            “WATCH IT!”

            “GET OUT OF HERE YA DAMN CURR!”

            “WHAT THE HELL’S WRONG WIT YE?!”

            “YE BETTER PAY FUR THA’!”

            He’d also been hoping when it did happen, he’d be somewhere far away on a mission of some fashion so he wouldn’t be reduced to this. Running at breakneck speeds through the Erebor Market Center, diving through crowds, under stalls, over tables and dwarrow alike to escape the closely following homicidal hobbit riding his arse across all of sundry.

            The morn had been as any other; he’d woken up and wandered over to the dining hall for breakfast. It had been about two months since the young’un had been brought to the mountain and the dwarrow had loosened up a bit as far as the lad’s time was concerned but they’d maintained the mornin’ and evenin’ meals for prosperities sake. There wasn’t one amongst the Company willing to admit they were actually enjoyin’ the enforced meals but none were willing to stick to their guns so hard as to move to disband them either. So he’d settled and tucked in just as rather fearsome crash came down from the direction the Ur family was residing in (they’d taken the swankier royal compartments they’d been offered at their wedding when young Frodo popped into the picture, seeing as they’d be needin’ the extra space as it were (it also made everyone much happier to have the wee one a might closer at hand than not)). Seeing as that set of rooms not only held his two best friends but his two apprentices he bolted for them directly, followed by the rest of the early risers (Dwalin giving a mighty war cry as he unsheathed his axe).

            They’d all stumbled upon simultaneously the cutest and the funniest sight they’d seen in a good while. There stood the wee Frodo, covered in the perfumed powder Bilbo had received as a wedding gift from Vaíl, amongst a goodly lot of the rest of their more precious gifts (such as the rare oils from the south that Óin had given them or the length of now thoroughly oil stained midnight silk Dís had hunted up). The wee thing sat there, glanced up in a haze with his big blue eyes and sneezed right as the lot came to a stop in the hall door.

            Bilbo, Bofur, and Bifur (Bombur having followed Nori as he was the one who’d been preparing their breakfast) came out of their respective rooms, weapons drawn and ready for whatever had tried to catch them unawares. Suddenly the Spy Master found himself much more concerned with the fact that he was suddenly getting much to familiar with the hairy chests of half naked Bifur and Bofur. As such he was excused that he didn’t realize that the hobbit lass had sheathed her Sting back in her belt. Bilbo was almost fully dressed (vest missing and the ties of her tunic the only thing loose, the flush on her cheeks and the disappointment on Bofur’s face a good indicator as to _why_ that was). (Hobbit Factoid! They rose rather early, open to a good lie in but when things needed doing (such as an alliance to be watched and solidified since she worked for Arda’s absolute _worst_ diplomat) they tended to be ready and waiting for first breakfast). As she walked over to the lad, picking him up and checking him over for any hurts she scanned the curious mess with a critical eye that belied her gentle cooing. It wasn’t until she made a soft “Hmm,” that Nori began to take the rest of the scene into consideration.

            There was little Frodo, covered in the now destroyed wedding presents Bilbo had kept in a high and secured trunk on the top shelf above the fireplace mantle in their front room. There was _little Frodo_ sitting amongst a large number of expensive _treasures_ he shouldn’t have been able to _reach_ or get to without a _key_. _Little Frodo_ who’d _fallen_ trying to see into the _sealed box_ of _lush trinkets_. Hmm indeed!

            Without a second thought the former thief was off! Down the hall and across the Dining Chamber, he was fast as anything that had ever ran for its life (he’d give Dwalin a right solid kick off the parapets later for laughing so hard at his predicament). As he taught the wee cuss chasing him, he didn’t look back, even when he heard the pound of a pair of normally silent feet beating across the table. He did turn when he suddenly found his right sleeve pinned to the cavern wall by a pair of steak knives (Dwalin didn’t believe in anything less than steak and eggs as a proper first meal). She was glaring at him, eyes sharp and golden as she bore down on him. With a desperate sweeping kick he kept her at arms length long enough to release from the wall and was off once more.

            He’d managed to loose her for a few times as the day had moved on. The first time he’d dodged into Dori’s Tea Emporium, because everyone knew it would take an act of siege to get him that close to his brother when he’d done something that was worth a lecture. But after the bloody prissy bastard had settled in to his fifth rendition of why it was “completely inappropriate to teach those horrible skills of his to such a young and impressionable child” he’d almost ran _up_ to Bilbo when she bust in and saved him with the continuation of their game. But he wasn’t a fool and he raced out the window and through the narrow fissions in the walls that he’d been fool enough to teach her how to navigate. It had been his thinking, as Spy Master, that should anything befall him there should be at least one person who’s loyalty was beyond question who would get their Royals out any way they could. So obviously he’d chosen Bilbo seeing as he trusted the rest of his ilk as far as he could throw an Oliphant. He was regretting that when he squirreled away in the underbelly of the city and found himself neck deep in refuse. She’d still found him barely an hour later and ran him out of the sewers and through the center of the Market. Now he’d crashed a half dozen stalls and thrown a number of random dwarrow and dwarflings in her way in an ill-fated attempt to misdirect her attention. Apparently the gamy wizard was wrong, not _any_ child would do for _their_ hobbit. And as he’d used _her_ faunt to piss her off in the first place he didn’t have _that_ option at the moment.

            He turned to see her running up the side of a turned over stall and gliding like a bloody gazelle over all the hurdles he’d lain in her path with the ease he’d instilled in her. There was no small amount of pride trying to fight its way up his chest past the fear for his life. She’d gone from something rather soft with some rough skills to this gleaming example of motion and agility. He imagined this was how a Master of those Guilds felt for their apprentice (or a father for their child, maybe a bit, save for the dark humor that tempered it (probably more like an older brothers for his younger one after he’s taught the tyke to cuss (speaking from experience now, and it had taken quite some time for _those_ braids to grow back, thank you _very much_ Dori))). But that was getting him no where fast and the lass had just summersaulted over the rather large pile of dwarrowdam he’d tripped up, eyes gleaming in victory as she continued to run him down. Nori, however, was a Master at his art, and as such was in possession of the two greatest allies he could ever hope for in his profession: one, a quick and nimble brain that allowed him to think on his feet, and two, a plan B.

            With this in mind he raced out of the center as the sound of the fifth work bell rang through the Mountain. The earliest shifts began at six in the morning, normally a time before the sun rose over the Mountain. There was a bell that rang out at the beginning of that shift and then at every four-hour interval to indicate the next shift after. They didn’t end until the last shift of the day at nine o clock at night. Every dwarrow, whether you were a miner or a King in training, lived by those bells. The Guard had their own shift captain for when the Mountain slept, but between six in the morning and nine in the evening, each day, the proper dwarf nation lived and breathed by those things. And that was what had Nori racing not up the Mountain towards the front gates, nor from either side in the hopes of wearying her out, but down into the bowels of the ever hollow caverns that stretched deeper and deeper into the earth, and gifted them with their commerce and trade. It was risky and it was a tight fit in some places, the lass had made some honest swipes for his head by the time he’d made his play for the South West Sapphire Mines, but it was well worth the close calls. Because standing just before him was Bofur, about to pack in for home as the fifth bell chimed the end of his workday. The cheery miner saw his friend coming at him at a full tilt and smiled his inviting grin and waved, “Wat’s this then lad? Loose me wife did ya?”

            Not even paying heed to the attempt at small talk, merely grabbed the confused lad by the shoulders with a muttered, “Come ‘ere, lover boy,” and thrust him behind him as he kept on running. He heard the collide of bodies and the yelp as a soft hobbit was suddenly barreled under a sweaty, muscular miner who’d been interrupted earlier that morning. Nori was pretty sure he had at least till morning of the following day to find some way to appease his previous apprentice for using her nephew as yet another progeny. But he still didn’t want to be anywhere near a scantily clad Bofur so he’d take himself as far away from the sure to be randy bout of bedroom bingo the pair would be having soon. He may just leave on one of the missions he’d been keeping on the back burner for a while till things cooled down. It’s not like he didn’t need the time away to gather more Intel on certain people of interest and Bilbo was a right scary little bit when she’d worked herself into a lather like this.


	5. Dís and Vaíl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Battle Without Honor Or Humanity
> 
> Tomoyasu Hotel – Battle Without Honor Or Humanity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to reorder my ENTIRE FUCKING OUTLINE so that I could find a way to sneak this in WAY sooner then it was supposed to be. It just wouldn't leave me the FUCK alone. I wrote it a week ago and had to dick around with the original line up so that I could post this before I burst with inner glee. I think it's my favorite of the lot.

            The setting is dark. Night had fallen across the East and all was silent in the great dwarf city of Erebor. Inside the mountain there was a kitchen, the sole use of which was the royal family and those few dwarrow and two hobbits that were considered as close as kin. In this kitchen there was a large circle table that was the, in recent weeks, little used source of the large bountiful dinners the original founders of the retaken Erebor would partake in. At the oaken table sat the dejected and ragged forms of eight dwarrow as they awaited the arrival of their King.

            To the left of the empty chair, designated for Thorin once he arrived were his nephews, Fíli and Kíli. Fíli’s golden head was thrown back, hanging limply from the neck that was strained against his chair’s back. His eyes were closed and his mouth was tensed as he continued to compulsively swallow, though he hadn’t touched a drop of the drink the Royal Chef had offered him. Hands fisted at his thighs he didn’t make a sound. Kíli was hunched over the table, black head buried in his crossed arms, shudders shaking through him every few moments, though none could discern if they were in sympathy for the tears he was shedding or in remembered horror of the calamity that had recently befallen the line of Durin.

            To Kíli’s left sat the newly of age Gimli. The lad was pale beneath his growing red beard, his eyes sunken as he grasped the tankard of ale in his hands. It was his second one, the first having been crushed in his terror and surprise when the Durin lads had finally managed to escape for this clandestine meeting. His eyes were blank save the fear that would flitter across the dark orbs at the slightest sound. Beside his tortured son was Glóin, arms crossed and staring blankly into the table. He was clenching his own forearms as sat in stoic silence, only the perceptive would see the slight tremors that wracked the hardened warrior as he hugged himself for comfort. Óin was beside his younger brother, hearing horn lost to the calamity, eyes watering as he tried to assess what further damage had been done to his already abused appendages. Just this morning his hearing ear had begun to bleed; the situation did not look good.

            Besides the failing healer was the ever eating Bombur, Royal Chef. His face looked gaunt, well, comparatively. He’d lost some chubbiness in the jowls beneath his chins and his clothing was hanging in places. Red hair was shedding further from the initial balding spot on his cranium. He was staring down, sadly, at his own hands. Bifur beside him was whittling his fifteenth piece of wood, shavings scattered about the table and floor. What should have been a charming little figurine of a pony for his young lad was swiftly changing into a howling face with teeth. As he finished the tip of the first fang he grumbled and huffed as he beheaded the creature and threw the rest into the tiny fire behind him. Reaching into his pocket for the next piece and his next attempt.

            Bofur was glancing around at his family and friends where he sat beside his gruff cousin and just huffed a bit, “It isn’t all _this_ bad lads! Tha lot o’ ya are actin’ as though the world’s been endin’! It’s nothin’ but a wee feminine spat is all. They’ll be braidin’ each other’s hair again in a weeks time, mark my words.”

            _“Easy for you to say, cousin, the only thing you’re seein’ of fightin’ is the sweet backside of your wee wife as she ravages you. Don’t think we aren’t hearin’ the howling coming from your rooms!”_ The growling Khuzdul fell into the room as the toymaker slammed the tiny demon he’d just whittled into the table, stabbing it through the heart to pin it into the oak. His eyes were savage but desperate as he glanced about at the rest of his fallen comrades. 

            “Aye, it’s the rest o’ us that ‘ave ta deal with the teeth on the wee thing. A wee thing I’ll point out, _you_ brought into this family!” Bombur’s grumpy grumble was pointedly accusatory as he turned to his brother a baleful glare.

            A glare that was returned with a great deal of interest as the miner rose to his feet in an instant, “Do ye have a problem with me wife then brother? Cause as I recall I wasn’ the only one eager ta see the wee thing brought into our line, nor will I allow any o’ ya ta say a bleedin’ thing to malign her!” The toymaker was glaring at the lot now, fingering his mattock as he did so.

            “Peace, Bofur!” Thorin’s voice even tired and bedraggled as it was, still resonated with power and authority. The sudden intrusion into the darkened room sent Fíli to the floor as he tipped back in his surprise and Gimli’s tankard splintered in his hands, spilling ale across the table and soaking the yelping Kíli. The King of Erebor’s hair was lank and tangled as he shoved a rough hand through it and sank into the chair next to his righted nephew. Glancing around the table he studied and weighed the faces of his men, his most loyal subjects, and what he found there was desperation and not a little bit of dying hope. Turning back to the still standing affronted miner he continued in as soothing a tone he could muster, “We are not here to lay the blame at the feet of Lady Bilbo. In fact, I think it’s safe to say we all feel the true problem lay in each of our respective womenfolk. Even you can’t deny the attentions your wife is lavishing upon you and your kin is troubling. Regardless of the form it may take,” Thorin’s face took on a wry note as he stared up at the miner.

            There was a general muttering of consent and agreement as Bofur sat back down, his decent an admission to the truth in that statement. “Aye, but what’s there ta do? It’s a problem between the ladies no’ somethin’ the lot o’ us can jus’ fix. They’ve somethin’ tha’ needs fixin’ themselves, interferin’ is jus’ gonna get someone killed.” Another grumbled of agreement as the table shared a shudder in appreciation of the damage that had already been wrought.

            “But how are they going to fix anything if the three of ‘em refuse to talk to each other?!” A harsh fist accompanied Kíli’s tired grumble to the table, his frustration clearly written across his scrunched brow. 

            “I say we lock the lot o’ ‘em in a room and be done with it,” Óin grumbled as he mopped the dried blood from his collar where he’d missed it earlier today.

            “Oy, some of us happen ta be married ta the lassies. And I donna know abou’ you, Bofur, but I’m no’ willin’ ta deal with tha banshee tha’ll surly replace the one I’ve already got at home for a new one! At least the one we got ain’t mad at the pair o’ us,” Glóin’s comment was wisely acknowledged around the table. Bad enough their womenfolk were spitting and hissing about each other, no one need think of the carnage that would wreck the halls should that ire suddenly thaw into righteous fury over the menfolk.

            “It’s the oddest thing, though. They’re so willing to scream and yell about each other but the minute they’re in sight of one another they clam up and their asses tighten so hard you can near hear the air whistling as they shut,” Fíli noted as he stared in wide eyed shock at the rest of his compatriots.

            It had been going on for something like three weeks now. A strong and deep silence had fallen over the Mountain early one morning that had gone unheeded until midday when the first Lady had found her kin and began the never ceasing ranting that had suddenly become the daily lives of these sad dwarrow. At first the lads had all tried to understand just what the fighting had been about. Obviously the three best friends, Lady Dís, Lady Bilbo, and Lady Vaíl had had a falling out of some sort. And as any good husbands, sons, brothers, and cousins, they’d tried their damnedest to find the root of the problem and fix it.

            That proactive approach had lasted all of a week, (less than a day in Óin’s case as the elder was less inclined to butt his nose where it so obviously wasn’t wanted) and then it had fallen into merely wanting to know what had happened so they could understand why they were suddenly being tortured. When Fíli and Kíli had made the mistake of trying to approach their ‘Aunt’ Bilbo to get the story straight, they’d fund a fuming hobbit who had maligned their mother and other auntie so viciously they’d near forgotten she was a sweet little thing to begin with. Returning to their mother with nothing but painful visuals and throbbing heads to show for it, they were soon attacked once more for their apparent disloyalty and a wailing mum who wanted to know just where she’d gone wrong in the raising of two traitorous bastards. She’d actually called them bastards! Her own _sons_! And that was actually the _least_ of what she’d called them. It had been up to Thorin to save the pair of death by shaming, and he’d received a hammer to the head and a bald spot on his growing beard for his troubles. He supposed it was worth it to keep his heirs but it was a very near thing.

            Similar horror had befallen the sons of Gróin as they’d dealt with the wailing of their sister in law and wife. Vaíl had been shrieking about returning to the Blue Mountain for weeks now, demanding her mother and insisting they take their son from this cursed land _now_! No amount of tender reasoning was making its way through. All attempts to point out Glóin’s allegiance to the Durin line (as well as his inclusion in said line) had been met with more cursing and, at one point, the wailing of his brother’s ear horn over his head. When the disgruntled Óin had pointed out, rather snidely if you asked his brother, that her very _son_ was actually a part of the very line she was cursing the lass had near sent him through a wall as she clasped her boy to her and continued to shriek about how her mother had been right about the pair of them the whole time and she wouldn’t let them corrupt her baby!

            But as terrifying as all that was for the dwarrow it was nothing necessarily new, though the intensity may have been a wee bit alarming. No it was the family Ur who were discovering for the first time exactly what a vicious little shrew had been unwittingly allowed into their hearts and hearth. Bilbo was amazing in her ability to appear fine one moment, chatting amiably and sweetly with her in-laws, and once they allowed themselves to believe for even a minute they were making some form of headway with the tiny lass she’d transform into a Balrog! Her fiery ferocity was only tempered by her tiny stature. It was all that had saved both Bombur and Bifur’s beards at any given moment, the fact the pair could outrun the lass, or, the one time Bifur had found himself in a corner, being able to pluck her up and place her somewhere entirely to high for her to easily escape. By the time Bofur would find her (normally after cornering the axe-headed dwarrow) she’d be fit to be tied. But as Nori had mercifully informed the Ur family before abandoning them on an extended mission outside the Mountain, Bofur was actually the only one safe from the tiny bundle of wrath and fury. He was certainly bruised and bitten (once had to all but hobble about the day after the altercation with Bifur and the high shelf in the workshop), but his spitfire wife wasn’t mentally or emotionally abusing him.

            “Thorin I donna wanna leave ya but if this keeps brewin’ I’mma have ta take my Gimli and follow the wife back to the Blue Mountains!” Glóin announced in despair. The last thing he wanted was to return to the clawed clutch of his bleedin’ mother-in-law! He’d been so eager to sign up to face down Smaug partially to escape the wyrm his beautiful wife had crawled out of!

            “I donna wanna go back to the bleedin’ Ered Luin! My cousin’s are here and I’ve no’ desire ta traipse through the thrice cursed wood with those tree shagger’s floatin’ about!” Gimli growled as he slammed his third tankard onto the table. “Careful of that! You’ll no see a fourth!” Bombur warmed as he wiped the foam from the table.

            “I have no desire to see you leave, Glóin. Nor do I wish to exile Bilbo _again_. So we’ve need to find a way to first understand what caused the strife between our Lady’s and then _fix_ it no matter the cost!” Thorin growled into the night as he stood tall and firm, trying to inspire a fighting spirit in his men. And it almost worked; the light of hope began to burn in the eyes of the bleeding spirits and shadows that had become his warriors. And then the doors to the secret conference were thrown open and clanged against the stone walls, revealing the threat they’d come to strategize against framed in the doorway.

            In an almost synchronized act of acrobatic disaster and folly the nine dwarrow leaped to their feet and tried to flee out the back of the room. Thorin, already standing, was the only one who actually managed to reach the service entrance at the back of the room with no mishap. In true loving fashion he thrust Fíli forward into his brother as he ran, in the hopes of appeasing the bloodlust in his sister, or appealing to her motherly instincts, really, at this point, he didn’t care whether he had heirs or not. Hell Erebor was hardly a prize in and of its self. He could probably find himself a little peak somewhere in the North that he could live out his days in peace and fear.

            Having been left behind by their beloved leader and Uncle, the lads scrambled under the table clutching each other in a final fare thee well.

            “I love you Kíli!”

            “You’re a daisy muncher Fíli!”

            Glóin grabbed his own son and threw the terrified lad across the room in an ill fated attempt to spare him as he himself jumped up and onto the thing with his surprisingly spry brother and the pair vaulted across. Sadly, Gimli ended up falling into the fire, burning the longer bits of his beard clear off as he rolled around the kitchen floor in agony and despair, and the brothers ended up slipping on the spilt ale from the three broken tankards (the third going the way of the previous two upon the arrival of the hounds of hell) and lay on their backs groaning as they awaited their ill met fate.

            Bifur, having seen the battle of Five Armies and, before that, the battle of Azanulbizar, was a long lived and battle worn dwarrow. As such he knew the value of a hasty retreat, of a frontal attack, and when it was all just useless. So he stood up at the table and stared down his fate, taking what he was given with the dignity of the already dead. He barely flinched when Bombur merely shrieked and the chair he was sitting on crashed under the, evidently, substantial weight of his sheer _terror_.

            Bofur was the only one who reached a trembling hand out to his lovely little wife where she stood scowling at the display, amber eyes flashing in the dying firelight (and that of the one dancing about on the thrashing Gimli), “Lass, now, let’s no’ get too worked over. There’s a reason fur all this here…” and he was suddenly gob smacked as that dear scowling continence turned to those mirrored expressions on the dark bearded lady Dís and the flame bearded lady Vaíl only to suddenly have the three burst into gales of laughter.

            All motion stopped as the remaining eight dwarrow watched in shock as the trio of Lady’s all but collapsed to the floor in their mirth, clutching each other to prevent just that fate.

            “Oh my goodness!”

            “Can ya believe this lot o’ bumpkins!”

            “Did you see Thorin?!”

            “How did _you_ see him? I swear he was nothing but a black blur as he threw your boys half across the room!”

            “Those cowering pollen pushing, daisy snatchers under there? No sons of mine.”

            “Oh dear, me wee Gimli near pole vaulted across the Mountain by his lack wit father. I swear me mum had the right of it!”

            “Your miners stood well though I must say.”

            “Aye, I’ve half a mind to take yur Bifur as me own after tha’ display.”

            “Now, now ladies, don’t go trying to steal my dwarrow. I’ve only had them for a few years!”

            The conversation continued but the lads weren’t hearing any of it as the Lady’s of the Mountain had sauntered off, leaving their menfolk a right mess in the middle of the near destroyed kitchen. Turning to his comrades and kin, Bofur smiled his cheery grin and announced, “Well then! It looks like I was right afterall. Somethin’ the lassies had ta work out themselves!” Before he could be beaten to a pulp by the enraged and embarrassed dwarrow the miner ran out the room after his lovely little wife and her friends. 


	6. Ori

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where did all these smart girls come from?  
> I don't think that I could choose just one  
> Where did all these smart girls come from?  
> Someone tell me how to get me some
> 
> Wheezer - Smart Girls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's hard to be actually angry at Ori. But it's not hard to torment him. And, okay, I know this might feel like it's coming out of left field. That's cause it did and I just decided to swing at it anyway. I think it'll be cute. We'll just have to see what happens.

            A resounding BANG caused the scholarly dwarf to jump onto his feet and whirl to his left looking for his attacker. Seeing the large tome that had fallen near two inches from his own head under the resting hand of his dainty little hobbit friend Ori’s fear abated and was quickly replaced with trepidation and concern. The tiny creature was near half a foot shorter than himself but made up for that in sheer force of character and will, something they’d all learned time and again. When amber eyes were flashing gold with inner heat and curly hair, normally neatly braided, ruffled from quick fingers running through it, those very fingers clenched bloodless at her umber brocaded thighs, the wise bet was a hasty retreat. There were very few things that managed to purse those lips so thin and flush that face so ruby. He’d seen it when Nori had escaped the mountain before she’d been able to exact retribution from him for ‘training’ young Frodo. There was the time Thorin told the dinner table he’d cleave the head off the next pointed eared freak that entered his halls (young Frodo had swiftly covered his own in horror). Finally, the time some viciously flirtatious firebeard in the mines had thought maybe the reason Bofur had married the hobbit was just his inexperience with _real_ dwarrowdams. That had been rather entertaining actually; Nori had actually found the spare bits of braided beard and hair and planned on presenting a framed box for the pair at Bilbo’s next birthday.

            But as could be deduced from the previous examples, some very swift and harsh physical justice at the hobbit’s hands normally followed this face. So Ori was wise beyond his years to become timid and trepid seeing it seemed directed at himself this eve. He was working up the strength of character to ask what he’d done and apologize when he was suddenly and harshly cut off by the half growled, “Why do you look like a kicked pup?”

            Blinking tired brown eyes Ori shook his head in mild confusion, darting looks around the room hoping for some diversion or savior, “Wha-wha-wha-what do you mean? I-I-I-I-I-I’m fine! Nothin’s, uh, nothin’s wrong. I, I found this great scroll on the First Age’s Elfish royalty! It’s probably not very complimentary… or unbiased. But it’s a curious piece and tha author’s got a real zeal for insultin’ as it were.” He moved across the small cove he’d set up shop in that day to divest a large stone shelf of the work in question. Turning with it as he spoke with the enthusiasm of any true bibliophile the piece was gently taken from his knit covered hands and placed behind the plump little female.

            He stood there as the regal hobbit lass turned back and reached warm hands up to cover his cheeks as a soft smile replaced the thinned lips and a honey glaze filtered into the amber eyes, one of affection and concern. With a sigh Ori let his head fall onto the smaller creature’s own forehead and released a wet sigh as his face warmed under the scrutiny. “Now then dear, If it weren’t enough you’re my mentor’s little brother, thus treasure, you’re also my very fondest little friend. How can I enjoy our times together over ancient texts and maps when you’ve been so clearly miserable for the past three months now. I thought surely you’d eventually come to me, or work out whatever it is but it’s only been getting worse. You’re not even taking care of your knit work recently.” Nimble fingers released his left cheek and danced through a hole in his hand made shirt, under the third rib causing him to shift and stifle a giggle.

            A sweet smile and a concerned look was all it took for Ori to loose what small amount of composure he’d been clinging to. With Bilbo sitting in a cushy winged chair Ori’d evacuated and the young dwarf lad wrapped around her waist, head in her lap, tiny hands carding through recently ill kept hair, the lad revealed his deepest secrets and troubles.

            As a people with very few womenfolk, sexuality and partnership was a wee bit flexible. More so than that of Men at the least, and Bilbo could have pointed out that Hobbits were little better, though they’d been moving towards a more progressive mindset of late. It was viewed as dishonorable to devalue any gift from the Mother and if love was gifted to two males or females so be it. Though it was still mighty scandalous in the Shire for more than a pair to make their homes but that would come with time she supposed. The dwarrow managed it and they were far from pliable beings. Bilbo had seen multiple families of dwarrow sharing the love and affections of a single dwarrowdam after all. Though it was partially out of necessity seeing the lack of breeding females, something that would never be a problem in the abundantly fertile populace of the Shirelings. But this was neither here nor there.

            When Ori began to describe a strong affection for a dwarrow, the point is to note she was hardly surprised by the masculine interest; she had a number of cousins who’d found a similar joy and would hardly begrudge them or Ori the bliss she’d found with her Bofur. No what had the tiny being gob smacked wasn’t what but _who_. Dwalin was certainly a strong dwarrow, and Bilbo had noticed the Guardsman was actually rather popular around the mountain. He had a small contingent of dwarrowdams that often clustered when he was on the training fields, thrashing the new recruits. He and Thorin would have their own competitions often and these same dwarrowdam would chant and roar encouragement at the fighter, there had been a time or two when loose bits of clothing had ended up in the fields. And that was merely the females. Dwalin was very rarely in need of companionship, at pubs or on the Gate during his rounds. He did make it a habit of glaring those very same companions into some quivering mass of trepidation whenever they tried to overstep their welcome. He never brought anyone to the Company dinners or breakfasts; he was always one hand motion away from throwing someone off the parapet when Frodo came rushing out to great his fierce friend.

            There had been _one_ time that had ended _all_ other like interactions where a dwarf had gotten annoyed at the interruption, made to swipe the lad away. Before Bilbo could wrench the offending hand off the owner, being preoccupied with picking up the downed Frodo, Dwalin hadn’t so much as blinked, not even a roar. Just suddenly a curse about children not knowing their place turned into a scream of fear and Dwalin was kneeling down to check over the lad himself. That dwarrow’s family had attempted to see about some form of retribution the next morn from the King. His three bulky brothers and a smaller lad that Bilbo thought rather dainty by dwarf standards had accompanied the broken dwarrow. Turned out the lad was a lass who worked in the mines, or so Bifur informed her later, and she’d been chuckling the entire way there. The blonde was standing to one side as her family told their tale of woe and mistreatment of suitors. When Frodo ran up from his place beside Bilbo at the side of the hall and crawled into Thorin’s lap to apologize for the trouble, the dark look the King and the Guard had given the whining togs near lost the lass her life as she doubled over laughing uproariously. Fíli, who’d been watching at his uncle’s side had been spending quite a bit of time down in the mines ever since.

            So yes, Bilbo could see the usual appeal. Dwalin was strong, fierce, a trained warrior and a dwarrow of high standing and wealth. He was also a member of the Durin line and cousin to the King. But she was rather surprised to find one such as Ori would be so enamored with him. They seemed so different at first glance.

            The younger was book learned and really only ever felt comfortable when he was waist deep in books and dust. Even now, Ori was covered in a thin layer of it and smudges of black ink were running through his hair and skin. The lad was taken with the art of crochet and knitting, not war play and fighting. Not that he couldn’t defend himself or his friends; he’d done that a number of times on their journey. But still, to see this slight thing in beside such a fierce one as Dwalin was momentarily disconcerting.

            Or course… Then Bilbo began to think of her own husband and found maybe she could understand after all. Bofur was rather crass, his humor scandalous, he spent most of his day sweaty and grimy in mineral dust and darkness. She wasn’t even of the same species, never mind the fact she was a genteel hobbit, used to leisure and business transactions. The only thing that ever really made her sweat previous to her interactions with these dwarrow was her books and her baking. Nothing like trying to raise a soufflé to terrify a hobbit. But she wouldn’t have any other. The hobbit lads of the Shire never appreciated her quirks and finicky behavior the way Bofur did. He thought her twitchy stuttering adorable. In some ways that’s what made him work at being even cruder, his adoration of her blushing continence and the shyness that had kept her from interacting with a lot of Hobbitton. And she found herself laughing more with her miner than she’d done with any being in all Arda. She found his ragamuffin wardrobe endearing and comfy, the strong arms cozy and safe. She also hadn’t found anything quite like a slicked up miner that could send those pleasurable little shock waves through her.

            So the more she thought about it, the more Dwalin and Ori actually began to compliment the other. The youth and petite nature of Ori tended to bring out some natural caring instinct in Dwalin. Throughout their journey he’d been one of the first to ensure the lad was firmly out of harms way, he’d even taken to teaching the lad to use his own war hammer, seeing the slingshot as unsatisfactory. During meals he’d heap more onto the youth’s plate in an attempt to ‘bulk ‘im up some’. Ori would blush and stutter, but munch away at whatever was offered. Likewise, whenever Dwalin was near the youngest Ri some of that rough exterior was muted; he seemed as tender as he was with Frodo, though gruff as necessary. Ori was one of the only creatures on Arda the warrior would stop his lessons or his patrol for after all. Half the time, when Bilbo couldn’t make it out of her meetings with the Elves or Men because she was living in a den of obstinate twig brained orc shit, the lad would take Frodo out for those before dinner walks himself. She hadn’t noticed at the time but the three would be very peaceable and cheery whenever they came in from dinner. Perhaps the pair was more fitting than she’d originally supposed…

            Of course none of this musing was going to do any good if the smaller lad kept on the way he was.

            “… he’s too great, and powerful! He could have any dwarrowdam in the entire mountain! They flock around him! He could have all of them if he wanted! A great provider and so sweet with children. Look at the way he treats little Frodo! He’ll want to settle with some lass and continue the line of Fundin, not some squeaky voiced, timorous, book obsessed, pathetic, nervous, useless – ” the rant was sudden shut off by a rather pained yelp as Ori found that very same tome from earlier had landed on his head. Rubbing the abused area he looked up at his friend and found nothing but ill content written in her tiny face.

            “You, my Ori, are a wonderful, brilliant, bright, glorious, sweet, charming lad and anyone would be lucky to have even a tenth of your innate graciousness. There isn’t a dwarrow in the Mountain, and that includes my dear beloved husband and family, that is half as learned or thoughtful as you are. If Dwalin could hear this maligning he’d cuff you himself. And if he can’t see that he doesn’t deserve you.” At the last she saw the big brown eyes turn a little downtrodden as Ori began to mentally reel off his reasons for not approaching the oblivious Guard. With a shake of her head, the hobbit lass rose to her feet and dragged the lad behind her as she exited the Library. “Well, since you seem more inclined to aggravate me with your low opinion of yourself, we’ll just have to get reinforcements.”

            “What?! You can’t tell anyone else! What would Dori think?! _Nori?!_ ” Ori was near frantic as he tried to escape the tight grasp without damaging his tiny friend.

            The snort was definitely unladylike and rang very much reminiscent of her husband as the Halfling trailed the dwarf behind her around a corner and up a flight of stone steps towards the royal suits, “Dori will have nothing to say, he’ll be happy that you’re happy.” A sinister smile graced the pink lips as she marched down a hall, “And I’ll have Nori’s nads for a necklace next I see the knothead.” That was _all_ her husband.

            Of course Vaíl was instantly charmed with the idea of the match and Dís insisted it was much too long, Dwalin should have been settled decades before now. They all agreed the tiny scholar was the perfect companion for their dreary cousin.


	7. Dwalin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Are you ready? Hey! Are you ready for this?  
> Are you hanging on the edge of your seat?  
> Out of the doorway the bullets rip,  
> To the sound of the beat yeah
> 
> Another one bites the dust  
> Another one bites the dust  
> Another one gone and another one gone  
> Another one bites the dust  
> Hey, I'm gonna get you too  
> Another one bites the dust
> 
> Queen - Another One Bites The Dust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dwalin's got a thick head

            Really, it was probably Mahal’s fault for making his children so dense. It was one thing to hew something from stone but did he have to give ‘em bleedin’ rocks for brains?

            The tenor of Bilbo’s thoughts as she dodged through the roaring punch of the enraged guard was dark and deviant. With a small huff of air in and out she popped up as she twisted above and over him, landing behind on steady feet. Steady feet that were attached to powerful thighs and used to send the suddenly reversed dwarrow to the ground face first.

            It had been something near two months since the tearful confession of Ori’s in the library. In that time she and the other Ladies of the Mountain came together and plotted for the benefit of their young friend. They’d come to the joint conclusion the first step in securing the future happiness of their two friends and family was to ensure a mutual attraction. This had been a job for Dís, who was closer to Dwalin than any of the others, having spent the better part of their lives trailing after he and Thorin’s coattails. She’d been talked out of the strictly direct approach she’d originally hoped to engage (read the violent extraction of information via pain and anguish) by the simultaneously blushing and blanching Ori (how the _hell_ he managed that was a small terror filled mystery). Instead, she’d sat by the warrior and started asking about his single status and if he’d found anything in the Mountain he’d like to maybe pursue. The disheartening laughter had only stopped when the princess had stabbed the reaching fist with her salad fork.

            Vaíl had decided that maybe they needed to show Dwalin just how much he was actually missing by remaining a confirmed bachelor. She’d decided to invite the nascent lovers to a small picnic with Bilbo, Bofur, Frodo and her own small family. It had been seemed to start off well. Glóin had taken this as a chance for some father son bonding as the pair went through some axe training. The happy relationship was on display as young Frodo crawled all over one of his favorite uncle’s lap while Bilbo settled in to cuddle with Bofur. Ori had just worked up the courage to sit next to the guard and begin a stuttering conversation when it had all went up like a dragon’s wrath. Fíli and Kíli still didn’t understand what they’d done to enrage their mother so terribly but they knew they would never crash a picnic with a stampede again.

            It was at this point Bilbo had decided the best way from here would be to just get the pair alone so they could sort themselves out. She’d put all of her learned skills to the test as she snuck around the Mountain. Taking a knuckle-duster from this resting place and putting it in the library to be found by the blushing Ori. It was returned to the training field and the pair had actually managed to exchange a sentence or two about the hammer training they’d left off on at the quest’s end before an obnoxious little trainee stumbled up for his teacher’s attention. A knit glove dropped in the path of an approaching guard during one of his patrols resulted in a trip to the library that yielded an even longer exchange about warm clothes on the gate. A surprise change in guard uniform resulted in a very flush tailor and the newest measurement’s of the captain, all of which were charmingly left out for a little scribe to copy down before returning to the confused tailor (he hadn’t been anywhere _near_ the dining halls that day…).

            The gift of a thick insulated sweater, in a deep blue and black thread that had been treated with some mineral oils to add a certain shimmering luster and durability was accepted graciously by a cheerful Dwalin. The guard had offered to take up the training of the young scribe as a form of retribution and the pair had been working together in the courtyards after breakfast for a few hours each day. This had been going on for three weeks. They were getting closer, certainly Ori was stuttering less and Dwalin was finding it easier to lay hands on the smaller lad to lead in their training. One of the Ladies would make it a point to stroll by every so often to gage the interest and interactions. They’d meet up later that night and cackle at a job well done. It was slow going but it was going and that was the goal.

            That morning Bilbo had been chosen to make the first circuit when this noxious, loathsome, toady came flouncing out to the field with his axe. He was a new recruit, one who’d just arrived from the Iron Hills, seeking a new life and fortune like all the rest of the new Erebor dwarrow. He was a very attractive Fire Beard, with deep red hair and lush beard, all braided and decorated in gems and silver. Ears pierced with the teeth of his victories, a necklace of the fangs that he’d wrenched out of his orc triumphs. Large muscles in a tawny brown shade, from working fields for years in an effort to serve his family, flexed as he arrived shirtless, ready to participate in the impromptu training.

            The intrusion wouldn’t have been so horribly inappropriate if Dwalin hadn’t been just in the midst of adjusting Ori’s grip on the hammer, standing behind the lad and taking him through the motions of a swifter and sturdier swing that should better suit the smaller dwarf. As it was, upon spying his trainee the guard had dropped his hands and practically jumped over to clasp arms in greeting, cheerily introducing the two to each other. There was no acknowledgement of Ori’s suddenly stiff stance and bitten lip as he stuttered for the first time in near a month.

            Bilbo noticed though, and she was far from pleased. And then the dolt had invited the red haired whore to join the session and she was off.

            The first flying kick to his head felt like a ram had fallen from the peak of the bleedin’ Mountain to abuse his thick skull. Stumbling away from the attack Dwalin turned to see the ruby faced hobbit in her apparently unencumbering brown brocade gown was descending on him swiftly, lining up another kick, this one with his face. He managed to dodge this and try and make a grab for the furry foot. Success was bitter sweet as his restraining hand merely allowed her the leverage to flip onto her hands, grasp his arm with her legs and throw him over her onto the unforgiving stone. He could hear the lad as he shouted for the mad little thing to stop as he stared up at the sky. It was the sharp yelp from said hobbit that had him jumping to his own feet just in time to see his trainee had bodily picked up the lass and was holding her aloft. He’d been about to charge and save the little bit (row or no she was still _his_ Burglar and the only one allowed to do that was himself and her husband). But with an almighty war cry the Fire Beard was cold cocked by the scribe who then proceeded to act as cushioning for his tiny fellow bibliophile.

            The Fire Beard didn’t seem to understand when to quit and made to take up the matter with Ori where the lad lay trying to ensure Bilbo’s welfare. Seeing him advancing on his felled mates the guard roared and engaged the now bemused and enraged Fire Beard. The pair traded punches and was grappling something fierce when suddenly Dwalin had a misstep. To be fiar he’d been thrashed something fierce by his tiny friend previous and he hadn’t realized Ori had just thrown his hammer around the square in his mad rush to save Bilbo. So when he tripped over it he was dazed, allowing the Fire Beard the upper hand as he came in for the kill.

            But as Dwalin felt it his place to throw around the tiny hobbit lass, she felt a similar propriety and with a running leap had wrapped her tight toned thighs around the Fire Beard’s neck. The lad tried to grasp the vice griping limbs but was thwarted by the second attack of Ori to his front and future children, taking a feather out of Bilbo’s cap. The attacker fell to his knees, turning an interesting shade of purple as he went. At least it complimented his deep red locks.

            Dwalin found himself suddenly heaved up to a sitting position by Bifur who’d found his way to the field in the last moments and was growling at some patrollers he’d grabbed along the way. The patrol picked up the downed dwarf and suddenly Ori was trembling as he walked over to his discarded hammer, “I-I-I-I-I’m sorry Mister Dwalin,” was the quick stuttered whisper before the poor lad ran off. Turning from the fleeing back to the huffing hobbit he found a fierce growl and glare his companions as she stomped off after the lad.

            “I don’ know what her bleedin’ problem is!” he huffed and puffed as the addled warrior helped him off the ground.

            Bifur’s chuckle was resonating as he draped the prone arm across his shoulder and began to hobble the pair towards the shop where he’d been working before one of his colleages had come barging in, completely frantic, telling him about someone attacking his cousin on the training square, _“She’s concerned for Ori is all.”_

            That seemed to clear the head of the battered warrior right quick. Sharp eyes and a fierce scowl turned to the spear wielding dwarrow, “Wha’s wrong with the lad?”

            The eldest Ur eyed the son of Fundin as he helped him settle onto a stool at his cousin’s workbench. Turning back to his own station he reached into the bottom drawer where he kept his odds and ends, some loose sketches and blueprints, a pretty rock he’d found in the Sapphire Halls when cleaning them out, and a silver flask of fire whiskey from the Iron Hills. He didn’t overindulge as alcohol reacted badly with his injury, but he could enjoy a stiff drink or three with no ill effects, just a loosening of muscles and strain. Taking a swig for himself he set out a pair of short glasses and filled them to the brim for he and his oblivious friend. Passing the offering back to the glaring Master Guard he smirked as he answered the query, _“Troubles of the heart near as I can tell. Nothing the lass can fix herself though she’s given it a good run.”_ He barely raised his black brow as the guard took the whiskey in a solid swift gulp and threw the cup out for more. Setting the second cup to the side he obliged.

            Eye barely twitching, mostly from the beating he’d just taken, Dwalin asked roughly as the whiskey burned down his throat and tried to warm the solid ice his belly had just become, “Heart? Wha’s the lad got to worry abou’ then? Some high brow lass caught his eye?”

            Bifur decided he’d not comment on the sulky sound of the voice or the twitch in the fingers as his guest toyed with the odd bits and pieces on the table. He _did_ remove the prototype of a tiny steam powered dragon from the twisting grip as he announced, _“Not a lass.”_

The dark eyes shot up to his friends as a strong jaw clenched, “Well wha’s the bleedin’ problem then?”

            Rolling his eyes he refilled the guard’s glass and took another swig, _“Reciprocation.”_

            That was apparently the wrong thing to say as Dwalin jumped to his feet and started roaring, slamming his fists into the table, “What half brained, orc rutting, craftless dolt wouldn’ have the smartes’ dwarrow of the Age? Who’s the daisy eatin’, dirt pusher? I’ll take ‘im an’ I’ll – ” the rant was cut short as Bifur had stood and grabbed the back of the bald head, thrusting it down into the workbench with a resounding THWACK!

            Blinking back the pain and rubbing the growing knot the guard roared as he reared up, “WHAT THE BLEEDIN’ ‘ELL IS WRONG WITH YA, YA GRASS EATIN’, ELF SHAGGIN’ – Oh.” The look of enlightenment was amazingly slack jawed as Bifur sat back down and poured a fifth glass for his friend. With a nod and a swift throw back the ridiculous lad clapped his large hands on his friend’s shoulder as he hightailed it out of the shop and towards the libraries.

            Bifur pushed the first glass, still full from when he’d filled it, out to the left of the table. A dainty wee hand, wrapped in some mildly bloodied bandages, reached out and lifted it half way to a pouty pink mouth. Narrowed amber eyes stared after the guard as Bilbo stated, irritation clear in her voice, “Why’d that work for you and not me? I damn near wiped the field with his face!”

            _Quality over quantity little one, it’s a dwarf thing._ The hand gestures sufficed for the learning hobbit.With a somber clink of flask to glass the pair threw back the last of the whiskey. Bifur’s stone face breaking into a smirk at the grimace and shiver that went through his tiny cousin’s frame.

            Wiping tears from either eye Bilbo huffed a few breaths as she stared at her best ally, “Yes well, that’s certainly questionable seeing your preferred spirits.” With a shrug and a kiss to the cheek above his beard she pranced out the back door that would lead to whatever cranny she’d been using to navigate the Mountain, “Thank you cousin. I’ll see you at dinner. I’ll make sure to save you a whole tray of those strawberry treacle you like so much.”

            With a larger smile the great warrior cleaned up his glasses and went back to the prints he’d been drawing up for a new type of highflying kite.


	8. Dori

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Black pools of coffee and rainbows of sushi  
> Honey in whiskey and cloudberry pączkis  
> Geese in the moonlight with stardusted wings  
> These are a few of my favorite things 
> 
> When the dog bites  
> When the bee stings  
> When I'm feeling sad  
> I simply remember my favorite things  
> And then I don't feel so bad
> 
> Avila – My Favorite Things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not my favorite, probably because of the lack of violence but I can't imagine Dori'd be that kind of angry, especially not at a tiny hobbit. This is also laying some ground work for a later chapter, not that you'll be able to tell what the fuck I mean by that till we get there but there ya go.

            He’d done surprisingly well, lasting a whole of three full days before everything went to hell. He’d managed to sneak back into the Mountain with no problems, but that _was_ his forte after all. Then the errant Spy Master had found his way to a number of his underlings and contacts, checked on the happenings since his abrupt and lengthy departure. Besides the tongue in cheek comments about his work outside the Mountain (he was decidedly not admitting anything more than a short jaunt out and about to visit with old friends, hardly worth mentioning he’d been chased out by a tiny banshee) the only things reported were the usual ill feelings for Elves and a few issues with the Hobbits. The only possible concerns that Nori would need to personally investigate were about a mining uprising, something about job quality and stability. Apparently there was a small contingent of dwarrow being led by some loud dwarrowdam who was demanding better working conditions and promises of benefits and job security in the event of injury. It was nothing that couldn’t be smoothed over by Bofur relatively quickly; the concern was he hadn’t taken it upon himself to handle the incursion yet, so Nori would have to check in on his friend soon. And though he normally didn’t shirk his duties he decided to enjoy a few days respite before searching out the miner as he wasn’t too eager to come in anything resembling first or second degree contact with his star pupil. He’d be avoiding any of the line of Ur for at least a week to gather courage and some armor. Nothing fancy just localized and strong for some extra southerly protection. He wasn’t sure he’d have children but he wasn’t ruling it out just yet.

            After some three days of hiding from kith and kin under the guise of ‘working’ (not like he was kidding anyone, even his subordinates were laughing as they reported to him) he found his way to the libraries intent on finding young Ori and getting a pulse on the Hobbit situation. The quiet lad had this calming effect on the lass, something Nori’d give his eyeteeth to possess, or at least be allowed to manipulate to his advantage. But Ori was a strong little lad, regardless of his timid nature, and thus would not save his disgraceful brother when he clearly deserved whatever was being done to him. But Nori could normally wheedle information out of him at the least so he was the best informant the spy had on the inside. Surprise of all surprises, however, he found the large rooms lacking in a certain stuttering scribe. Curious seeing as the lad was always either there or home, having no social life to speak of outside the Company. Dori must have commandeered the lad for one thing or another. So after taking another day to gird a completely different set of loins, Nori decided it in his best interests to go find his elder brother, even if he wasn’t relishing the idea of the impending lecture. But between potentially running into Bilbo before being made aware of how much more cooling off she required and seeing his nattering brother, the lesser of two evils was clear. This turned out to be as ill advised as taking young Frodo under his tutelage in the first place, though it would be at least a sennight before it all became clear.

            Strolling into the Tea Shop a few mo’ before dinner the next eve, Nori strode to the back room, winking at the sweet little dwarrowdam working the floor for his brother that morning. She was a pretty little thing as she sashayed by him, pretending to be in a huff but all the while watching his retreating back. Maybe if this meeting with Dori went south he’d have a nice comfy place to bed down that eve. Walking into the back with a bit of a kick to his step, spying his elder brother’s silver braids bent over what must be inventory of some sort he hailed him in the traditional Ri family fashion, “You’ll go blind in this bleedin’ light brother. Can’ ya afford some extra glows? I’ll filch a crate fur ya in the morn.” He collapsed into the seat across the elder.

            “You’re a grown dwarf with enough coin to buy a Mountian of your own if you were so inclined. Why do you insist on being such a blackguard?” Dori’s head remained bent as his pure white feather quill continued to scratch across the book.

            With an eye roll the star haired lad propped his booted feet up on the desk with a resounding thud, “Well the other option is to be as upstandin’ an’ proper as you an’, lets face it, I’d go mad with boredom and hav’ ta strangle meself with me snowy white neckerchief,” he made a pointed glare at the offending piece of cloth on his brother’s person.

            For the first time since the intrusion, grey blue eyes glanced up into hazel with a disgruntled huff and a strong arm swiped the messy footwear off the neat little desk, causing Nori to clank into an upright position. “It’s called a cravat. And nothing could stay pristine on you. Have you even bathed since you ran off? You look like something an orc dragged in.” The scowl that accompanied the fussy tone was very good at concealing the concern at his brother’s bedraggled appearance, but it was there as he marched around the desk, in the firm hands that began to swipe at the loose wisps of red tinged hair.

            With an annoyed swipe of his own paws Nori fluttered away from his mother hen brother and made his way to the front room in an effort to escape the enforced grooming, “None of that! I came ta ask about Ori no’ get me braids tweaked and twitched!” He’d practically fallen out into the front when the silver bell over the door jingled.

            With barely the time to see a hard light fall into the blue grey eyes and a thinning of tightly clenched lip and jaw, Nori found himself pushed to the side of reality by a cloying enmity. His concern was doubled and married to jumping nerves as a joyful, “Uncle Nori! You’re back!” rang through the Emporium. Turning he found himself with two armfuls of tiny Hobbit lad as Frodo’s big blue eyes smiled up at him. Those giant eyes suddenly lost their spark, however, as they turned to Dori and reached for the teashop owner, “Uncle Dori are you coming to dinner tonight?”

            With a small smile the elder Ri reached out a gentle hand and patted the head that held such beseeching eyes, “I’m sorry lad, not tonight. There’s a bit of work that needs doing. Inventory doesn’t do itself after all.” 

            Frodo’s little mouth turned down in a frown as he turned to the two he had come into the shop with, “Auntie Bilbo could help! Then you could start coming to mealtime again! And we could have Tea tomorrow! Wouldn’t that be fun?”

            Nori looked up expecting to see a the fiery rage of his apprentice bearing down on him but was near shocked into an early grave by the stiff, cold face that he was met with. A tiny smile for the lad was all that spoke of the kind spirit within the statue of his friend where she stood next to a cringing Ori as the lad glanced back and forth between her and Dori, “I don’t think Master Dori wishes for my _help_ dear. He’s, after all, a very responsible _dwarrow_ with a _family_ to look after and would hardly appreciate _any_ aid in that.” The small smile turned brittle and toothy as Bilbo turned hard gold eyes on the elder dwarf.

            Turning to watch the volley back, Nori saw Dori had straightened to his full height and was staring down his nose at the tiny lass. Hands clutched in the lapels of his jacket the dwarrow gave a slight incline to his head, “Exactly so. This is _my_ responsibility. It has been for _years_ and it’s not something one can learn in so little time. Better to let those in the know and who are _directly_ affected handle the work.”

            With a thinning of tight lips the hobbit lass turned back to her mentor and gave Nori a cursory nod, and a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, “Well then, it’s nice to see you’re back Nori. I’ll hope to see you and Ori soon.” Taking the tiny tot back from the suddenly slack thief the pair flounced out, big sapphire eyes watching them as they retreated, frowning the entire time.

            “What the hell was that about?” Nori’s voice was monotone as his head tried to process everything that had apparently happened just moments ago. Turning to his elder he saw Dori glare at him before storming back to the back muttering about a shipment of peppermint he needed to check on.

            “Nori! You have to do something! It’s all my fault!” tear-filled brown eyes looked up at him as a pair of surprisingly strong arms (considerin’ the heaviest thing the lad normally picked up was an overlarge tome) wrapped around his back and squeezed the air out in sympathetic panic.

            With a gasping exhale and an agile shift from front to side, the returned thief wrapped his own arm around his baby brother’s shoulders and strangled some calm into his next statement, “Now I doubt whatever it _is_ is _all_ your fault. You’re not really one for mischief. So wha’s happened while I was away?” With a firm grasp on the suddenly shaking shoulders the elder Ri turned the pair so they’d march out of the shop and towards their own caverns. If he was going to discuss strategy with the lad he wanted to do it in the comfort of his own home, and the relative security of it as well.

            The tears kept streaming but the bone-breaking grip had been transferred to destroying the frayed knitting of the lad’s gloves as he worried his hands. Looking back up at his elder brother Ori sniffled piteously and just about ended Nori’s existence there. Ori should never be so sad as he was right then; he and Dori had strove his whole life to making him a happy content thing. “I’ve been courtin’ a dwarrow and Bilbo’s been helpin’ me. Bu’ when Dori found out he wasn’ happy with the match and the pair gottinta a row and ain’t talkin’ to each other no more! It’s been like that there fur the past two weeks. Little Frodo’s been cryin’ an’ missin’ us an’ it’s all my fault! I should ‘ave tol’ Dori ‘bout this well before he foun’ out on his own and-” sniff, “now Bilbo and-” wet hiccup, “Dori won’ be-” trembling inhale, “anywhere’s near one an’ other!” And the lad dissolved into big wet loud tears as he burrowed his ravaged self into his big brother’s front.

            Nori did what any big brother would do at this point. He hugged the lad, pat his back in exuberant glee and announced, “You dog you! Well-done lad! But first thing’s first I suppose.” Drying the lad’s face with the neckerchief he’d swiped off Dori (really Bilbo’d had something there with the uses and necessity of the tiny cloths), “We’ve a fire to put out. Now, tell me everythin’ that got said.”

***

            From hear tell of it the row had been much the same as the one he’d been privy to in the shop. All quiet and stiff with veiled threat and reproach. Ori had come home with Bilbo in tow one eve to an enraged Dori. A regular at the Tea Shop had apparently seen Ori on one of his daily jaunts with his intended and asked the merchant what Dori’d thought of the match. The main argument against this was Ori’s age and inexperience. Dori didn’t think it proper the lad should be saddling himself with someone so much older and world worn when he was clearly a scholar and could do far better. It didn’t help any that Dori’s feelings were sure to be hurting after being completely bypassed during traditional courting procedures. There was a proper way about these things and he, as head of the Ri clan should have been notified promptly and personally, not the last to be informed by some random customer one morn. The real problem had become explosive when the Dori and Bilbo had gone for the jugular as only caretakers were capable of doin’.

            “How can you say that!? He’s beyond respectable, royal even, and has been guarding our home since the beginning! He’d die for any of us, Ori most of all!” Bilbo’s face had blossomed into a deep shade of maroon as she argued against the huffing dwarrow.

            Silver eyes narrowed at the intrusion in something that should have been private, that he should have been helping his baby brother with, “This doesn’t concern you Miss Baggins. _I_ am the head of this family and have been for some time now. As such _I_ should have been consulted about this reckless, fruitless venture before _any_ such impropriety had taken place!”

            Gold eyes snapped as the tiny female drew back and straightened her spine as she lowered her voice to mirror the composure of her opponent, “Well, as the _head_ of this _family_ I would think you’d be more concerned for the _happiness_ of your charge, more so than the insult you’ve been unwittingly dealt.”

            A sharp huff and the merchant turned to fully gaze down at the burglar where she stood, “I do not expect a hobbit to understand just how damaging such a union could be for such an up and coming, prominent youth as my brother. Nor do I expect someone who has known Ori for less than a decade to have any idea what would be best for him. Your concern does you credit but is hardly founded or necessary. This is a family matter first and a dwarrow one second.”

            There was a split second where the implied lack of familiarity dredged up every last feeling of inadequacy and forlorn solitude the little Baggins Took had lived with before thirteen dwarrow and a wizard had burst into her life all those years ago. Feelings she’d thought put firmly to rest after joining this mad family. Apparently not. The sharp pain was swiftly shuffled to the side as Bilbo delivered her final blow before storming from the little home, “What I lack in length I certainly seem to make up for in intimacy. As it was, Ori felt comfortable talking to _me_ about these matters of the heart and your other brother has never felt it necessary to hide himself or his talents from me simply because it would offend _my_ sense of propriety. But you’re right of course; _you_ are the head of _this_ family. Obviously _you_ know them best.” The pair hadn’t spent more than ten minutes in the other’s presence since.

            The rest of the Company had attempted damage control. Dwalin had tried to speak to Dori, prostrating himself at the feet of his mercy, fully agreeing with the elder dwarrow when it came to Ori’s prospects. Dwalin knew that such a young lad with the smarts and cunning would make a grand conquest one day if he had any desire to. Dwalin was far too old and not near intelligent enough to make a proper match for the lad. Didn’t stop him from wanting to though, and didn’t stop him from promising both Dori and Ori to make the youth as happy as he possibly could. If Dwalin could he would see that lad wished for nothing and would be the safest, best kept treasure of the entire Mountain. All this seemed to do was result in a stonier attitude and unbending resolve from the teashop owner. He didn’t need the guard to agree with him, he needed him to stay the hell away from his family. This was a dwarrow that had arrested his middle brother almost every time he turned around in the Blue Mountains. There was no love lost, and he would not allow someone of that malicious intent into his line. No one so crass was worthy of his brilliant little brother anyway.

            Balin and Glóin had attempted to appeal to his reason. Pointing out the benefits to the match and the obvious status elevation. The family Ri had often been shuffled to the side as one of ill repute. They were distant cousins to the line of Durin who fell to the wrong side of the sheets so to say. Descendants of a misused royal dwarrowdam who’d had them out of wedlock. That alone would not have been enough to place such a lasting dark mark on the line but this had ended some very tentative peace and alliance treaties that had been in the making. The dwarrowdam was supposed to marry to officiate the alliance but had went against her people’s wishes and best interests in favor of a dwarrow she’d fancied herself in love. He’d turned out to be a spy who’d been trying to damage the treaty talks and cause a war between the clans. It nearly had. So an alliance between the lines of Fundin and that of Ri would certainly go a long way towards repairing the previous damage, something the little family had hoped would happen with the completion of the Quest and with the wealth from their shares of the Mountain. But the pair had underestimated the strong issue Dori was taking with the uneducated and rough-hewn guard.

            Thorin was _not_ getting involved in such nonsense. It was hardly the King’s duty to play matchmaker and he didn’t give a damn how hard Dís was going to slam him through a wall. When someone died he’d step in, not before. The only thing he’d done in deference to his sister’s insistence that _something_ must be done was take his nephews and forbid them from interfering. Thus there was no _further_ damage inflicted into the conundrum by the heirs, but it was hardly helpful as a solution. There was one area of support for the stalwart King and that was Óin as he firmly agreed with Thorin this was none of their bleedin’ business. As such he was the healer on call whenever his resolved was tested and the Durin Princess cracked open his skull.

            The entire Ur family was beside themselves. Bilbo had come home from the confrontation and tearfully rushed into her husband’s arms. He’d not seen her so forlorn since the beginnings of their journey together and Bifur had been fit to be tied. Or tie Dori as it were. The only thing that had stopped a small war from breaking out was Vaíl’s insistence that this was a matter for diplomacy not fists, and that if anything like that were said to Bilbo again she’d see to it personally that Dori lost his topknot. Either way, Bombur refused to serve someone from his kitchens that’d made his little sister cry in such a manner and doubt her status in their family.

            Seeing as the rest of the mountain was having no such luck breaking through the impenetrable wall of propriety and protectiveness that was his brother, Nori was the last hope. Luckily, he’d had _years_ of experience manipulating his elder and was more than willing to do so once more in the name of future peace and prosperity. All he was going to have to do was remind Dori that it was practically impossible to remain angry with one Miss Baggins.

***

            Dinner was proving charming. Nori’d managed to trick Bilbo and Dori, with the help of Ori and Frodo, of course, into having a tiny welcoming dinner for his safe return to the mountain. It had taken all his cunning and the aid of the Lady’s Dís and Vaíl, the former convincing the youngest Ur to provide the meal and the other to offering to set up one of the many apartments he had scattered about the Mountain for his and his ilk’s personal use for the meeting. He hadn’t told either of the participants exactly who would be invited to the dinner, letting them draw their own conclusions. Ori and himself had cajoled and caterwauled until Dori had left his dusty dingy little office in favor of food and he’d left Frodo’s big sapphire eyes to do the trick on Bilbo. Bofur had staunchly refused to be a mechanism in any further upset his little wife would potentially suffer at the stuffy dwarf’s hands, even though he did acknowledge the distraction of said hurt wife was causing his own work to suffer. Thus he was far from stopping the dinner but hardly helpful to Nori in general and certainly not going to attend.

            When the pair had seen each other upon entering the readied dinning area Nori was almost positive he’d heard both their asses whistle shut in the same instant. The pair had situated themselves as far from the other as possible, meaning they were unfortunately facing each other across the table. Tiny Frodo had jumped into Nori’s lap within an instant of arrival, hardly happy by the tension but much to young to understand it. Ori was sitting across from Nori looking worried and damn near rubbing his hands into bloody nubs as they all sat and silently sipped at their soup. It was with a deep sigh and a large eye roll the middle Ri demanded into the suffocating silence, “What the bleedin’ ‘ell’s wrong with the pair of ya? Can’t you see you’ve terrified little Ori and Frodo looks fit ta tie ya both by the braids from the ceilin’.”

            Stony silence and a pair of ridiculously similar glares was his only reply. At least until a pair of large sapphires turned from the biscuit he’d been munching and looking into the thief’s mutable ones, “Dori doesn’t like my Auntie anymore cause she’s not a dwarf and not family, but all she was trying to do was help! She didn’t mean to make him angry! We’s can’t helps bein’ hobbits! Is it a bad thing that we’re hobbits? I don’t wanna leave my new uncles and aunties and cousins.” From the mouths of babes. Nori’d known that Frodo was going to be instrumental in this but his heart damn near broke at the wet oceans as they stared up at him and Dori.

            Thank Mahal the elder Ri was actually made out of pure lead, you could cut through him with a butter knife. Silver blue gaze turned alarmed and a large warm hand, the same one that had seen himself and Ori through some of their worst nightmares and terrors as children, reached out and carded through the black curls of the tiny hobbit, “Of course not! You must never be sorry or ashamed for what you are. Hobbits are quite charming people, you and your Auntie are perfectly proper and welcome for your heritage.” Bilbo had reached her own hand over to her nephew and was rubbing the tense little back. At Dori’s words, however, she stilled a moment and glanced up at the elder for the first time that evening.

            And that was all well and good but was hardly enough to get the point across now was it? And so a swift kick to Ori should begin the game. A startled look in brown eyes that glanced over at their elder brother before a swift swallow and a nod, “Ya see what ya’ve done!? You’ve made him think he’s not wanted about here cause you’re so stubborn and won’t go anywhere near Bilbo!”

            Dori was getting that hard look to himself again as he withdrew his hand from the tot. Nori’s cue. “Wait a tic, though. This _is_ dwarf business then isn’t it? So even Frodo can tell that has nothin’ ta do with Hobbits. She should have stayed out of it.” Nori glared at the younger brother and watched out of the corner of his eye as Bilbo flinched back to her seat. Frodo was watching the happenings with big eyes but seemed content to be petted by the thief where he sat.

             Dori, however, did not seem too keen on letting the lad hear such drivel without it being put to rights, nor did he appreciate the obvious hurt in the Lady Burglar’s continence at his lackwit brother’s claims. “Now see here! Lady Bilbo has been nothing but good to us here in this mountain since we stumbled, uninvited, into her tiny smial. She left her people to give ours a home. Faced a dragon and five armies to restore our line to its rightful place in Erebor. It doesn’t make her a dwarf but it’s better than any of the rest of the dwarrrow gallivanting about this Mountain and I’d take this one Hobbit to an army of our own kind!” The silver haired dwarrow took up the tiny female’s hands where they’d clenched on the table and smiled softly at his friend. Bilbo returned said smile with a watery one of her own and grasped the hands holding her own in thanks.

            “Well she’s still not family and had no business butting into something that was clearly ours to handle. How’s she to know what’s best for Ori?” it was taking quite a lot to maintain a serious and unaffected air as Nori found himself _very_ tempted to start laughing at what was happening.

            Dori snatched a hand back and tried to crash it against his brother head, “She’s the first person who’s ever spent so much time with the lad! They speak the same book language and trade since the beginning of this venture! If anyone knows our Ori half as well as we do it’s this lass!”  

            “Half as well!? What do you know about being in love then!? Why shouldn’t I do what I see fit? I’m old enough to be on my own and make my own way in the Mountain!” Ori piped in, fidgeting with his hands as he glanced around the table in terror of his bold statement.

            It was with a sudden shift Bilbo was now offering Dori comfort as she scolded the younger Ri, “You’re brother _loves you_ more than life itself. It’s only natural he should want what’s best for you and be involved in your life. He wouldn’t be so concerned if he didn’t have your best interest at heart.”

            “And exactly how would he know what’s in my best interest? He barely understands me at all!” Ori announced thwacking the table for overly dramatized emphasis. At this point he was quivering so much he’d near shook the table to the floor and Nori was clutching the mouth of a giggling Frodo as the lad had found it quite funny the pair who’d previously been fighting were arguing for each other. It was only the willingness of those present to have this resolved that kept the obvious recital from falling apart.

            With a sharp glare Bilbo announced, “Well he knew better than to insist you become a warrior or miner. Both noble and preferred occupations in dwarrow kind, but nothing you’d have enjoyed. He also knew you well enough to realize you wouldn’t be happy as a merchant. Thus he slaved away to give you home and hearth and the means to pursue your true passions.”

            With a firm nod and a smile the elder dwarrow stated, “Aye. Though perhaps I’ve been a bit rash in my treatment of _this_ situation.” Bilbo’s encouraging smile produced a second nod from Dori as he turned to his youngest brother and patted him on the head, “I’ll give this a chance, since you’re so keen on it. I wouldn’t want to stand in the way of your happiness, even if I know bloody well you could do better.”

            “Well you’ll hear no arguments here,” everyone turned to the tiny hobbit when she lifted her teacup to her lips after that statement. With a smile at young Ori she patted her friend’s unraveled mitten, “But the heart wants what the heart wants.” Turning back to Dori she continued in contrition, “I’m sorry we didn’t come to you before this all began Master Dori. It was beyond rude and hurtful.”

            “And I’m sorry I implied you were anything besides wanted in this family, Lady Bilbo. You’re one of us through and through.” The pair shared a smile and a small toast as they washed down the bile and bad feelings from the previous weeks with some of Dori’s best blend.

            With a warm smile and an appreciative sigh Bilbo turned to the elder and announced, “Thank goodness that’s over, I’ve missed your brilliant brews something awful!”

            Nori’s smile was all self-satisfaction as he turned to his younger brother and realized he’d missed one key detail earlier. Lascivious grin in place he asked with a flirty wink, “So who’s the lucky lass then?”

            Amber eyes glared, big brown one’s widened in trepidation, and Dori, with his teacup poised daintily in his hand, sat back with an air of clear vindication. Frodo’s blue eyes scrunched as he turned his gaze up at his mentor, “Uncle Dwalin’s not a girl.”

            **_“WHAT?!”_**


	9. Bombur

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But there's no sense crying over every mistake  
> You just keep on trying 'till you run out of cake  
> And the science gets done and you make a neat gun  
> For the people who are still alive
> 
> Portal – Still Alive

            Bombur was beside himself as he watched his little sister wail in their home’s kitchens. She was thrumming her head against the heavy wooden table quite hard. Bifur was trying to reason with her, grabbing at the curly head and growling about how it wouldn’t do to have _both_ of the _smart_ Urs addled to the point of lacking clarity. Mahal knew Bofur and Bombur wouldn’t be able to take up the slack. This, of course, had Bombur scowling over at his elder cousin as he continued to putter about the kitchen.

            _“Aren’t you going to **do** something!?” _the frustrated warrior demanded as Bombur pulled himself out of the oven. Then the lad placed the piping hot cakes on the cooling rack, cutting a slice prematurely, but desperate times, and placed it on a plate in front of the self-abused lass. The wild looking Ur glared first at the cake then at his youngest cousin and snarled, _“What in Mahal’s furnace is **that** supposed to do?!” _

            But even as he finished his scowling demand the tiny nose on their tiny member’s face twitched and big amber eyes popped up and zoned onto the spice cake she so loved. Nimble hands raced through the air and snatched up the comfort food, shoveling it into a yearning maw. This had the added benefits of both stopping the head banging and silencing the keening.

            _“Mahal’s beard.”_ Bifur seemed torn between disgust and astonishment but Bombur merely cut another slice and placed it on the empty plate. The hobbit had started to slow down by the third slice and, with a fourth ready just in case, Bombur sat and grasped his sister’s clear hand, “Now, Bilbo, what’s happened here?”

            The keening came back, though a bit muffled, as a pained and pinched look crossed the bulging face as cheeks tried to store the suddenly engulfed forth slice.

            “I just saw the most horrific thing in my entire life. People shouldn’t DO things like that in a library. The books have been SCARRED! The sanctuary shattered! I. Can. Not. Live!!!” and she was back to the beating again. Bifur’d had more than enough and jumped to his feet, raising the wounded creature into his own arms as he decided to go off with the lass and find his good for nothing cousin. Just as he made his way to the door, Bombur trailing behind him with two pieces of cake, one he was feeding the hobbit the other he was munching on himself there was a knock at the door.

            Throwing the lass into the larger dwarf’s arms he wrenched it open, _“WHAT?!”_ Bifur roared looking as harried as only a frazzled axe wounded dwarrow toymaker could.

            Standing in the doorway was Dwalin, who’d actually jumped back at the half crazed light in the older dwarf’s eye. Of course, that hardly amused the Royal Guard who instantly dwarfed up and stepped further into the family’s cavern with sure feet and solid stance. Who was to blame him for twitching a few fingers towards Grasper? “I’m here to see Bilbo.”

            _“She’s **indisposed** at the moment.” _ The growling Khuzdul was normally something similar to rocks grating against each other. Bifur made it sound like another Stone Giant Battle.

            Seeing the streaming face of the reddened hobbit where the miner indicated Dwalin’s face seemed to blanch and redden at the same time, “She saw meself and Ori in a less than appropriate fashion in the back o’ the library.” At the keen that erupted from the distressed hobbit the blushing brute whirled around and growled, “It wasn’ all _tha’_ bad! Ye act as though ye’ve never seen a naked dwarf befur!”

            “ ** _What!?_** ” the roar was swiftly followed by the red blur that was Nori as he tackled the guard and the pair began to beat the ever living shit out of one another. Balin and Thorin, who’d been coming down the halls ready for their nightly Company Dinner raced into the family rooms and tried to part the pair while Bifur held the lass’s head away from the sharp corners or the hard walls as she keened from the side of the sitting room, thanking Bombur as he passed the lass another piece of that magic cake.

            Frodo, who’d come in with his Uncle Nori, stood in the doorway for a moment, observing the chaos. Seeing the cake his Auntie was being soothed into munching his big blues got wider and he made his way over the wrestling bodies, in between legs and across the room into the kitchen where he found his goal. Cake in hand he maneuvered his way through the brawl, now including Uncle Thorin and Bifur while Balin nursed a headache and his Auntie continued to make those weird noises while Bombur patted her curls. Once at the door he quietly closed it and sat down in the hall to enjoy his spoils.

            The third large crash in the last fifteen minutes rang through the hall as Bofur crept home. Seeing his tiny nephew with his head ears deep in cake he thought better of entering his abode. Turning a contemplative gaze from the lad to the door and back again Bofur asked the happily oblivious child, “Wat’s this then?”

            A shrug was his answer followed by a cake muffled, “Wansomcac?” Something Bofur managed to translate correctly as it was accompanied by a tiny hand offering a crumbling heap of pastry.

            Smiling as he shook his head in the negative Bofur knelt by the lad and asked, “Who alls in there?”

            With a large swallow that made Bofur question hobbit physiology and if he’d know how to dislodge foreign bodies from tiny bodies the lad listed, “Um… Uncle Nori was fighting Uncle Dwalin. Uncle Thorin and Balin came in too. Uncle Bifur and Bombur were sitting with Auntie Bilbo… I think that’s it.” The lad was staring down at his crumby, glazed fingers as he made the head count. Suddenly his intense scrutiny of the digits became him popping them in his mouth to lick off the sweetness as he stared up at his Uncle Bofur.

            With a small, strained chuckle the minor picked the tyke up, “What say ye we go an’ find Lady Dís and Vaíl to save our chambers an’ then go an’ see if Gimli an’ them boys would like ta join us down in Dale for a late supper huh?” A gooey smile was all the response he needed, which was good, as he couldn’t make out the words in the mushed language the lad had adopted. With a chuckle he deposited the tot onto his hip and announced, “Mayhap a wee bath befur an’ we’ll ‘ave everythin’ set ta rights.” The pair took off for parts far from the illustrious Durin Folk.


	10. Thorin & Balin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm breaking dishes up in here, all night  
> I ain't gon' stop until I see police lights  
> I'ma fight a man tonight, I'ma fight a man tonight  
> I'ma fight a man, a man, a m-a-n  
> A man, a man, a m-a-n
> 
> Rihanna – Breakin’ Dishes
> 
> Cigarettes and chocolate milk  
> These are just a couple of my cravings  
> Everything it seems I like's a little bit stronger  
> A little bit thicker  
> A little bit harmful for me
> 
> Rufus Wainwright – Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk

            Balin was not the type of dwarf to go about insulting his King or suggesting anything untoward about the line of Durin. He had only the highest respect for the dwarf Monarch whose coronation took place on the blood-drenched fields of the Battle of Azanulbizar. As a member of said proud dwarrow clan it would not only be ridiculous but self incriminating to even entertain the thought the line had recently succumbed to some kind of mental blight or an atrophy of the higher senses and intellect. Unfortunately, the elder thought, as he stood to the side of his King’s door, wincing only _ever_ so slightly at the resounding crash that was followed by a string of roaring curses, his denying it didn’t make it any less true. And at the head of the mental emaciation, unfortunately, was his very own Lord. The dwarf had all the tact of a fire wyrm and the temper of a warg in heat. After something near six years one would think the bloody idiot would have learned something of diplomacy, or at the least how not to pique the temper of possibly the only creature in the restored nation who could out shout him. But, alas, one must understand what they’d done _wrong_ before they could learn from it.

            The eldest son of Fundin nodded cheerily at a passing servant as she rushed by. He blatantly ignored the shimmering axe blade that had just peaked through the mid section of the door he continued to stand by, bidding the terrified lass a good day as she began to pick up some speed. With a sigh he turned a frown on the thing and thought on his own predicament. Normally he’d be cheerily ensconced in his own office or running errands about the Mountain during one of these little episodes with his King and their tiny ambassador but it turns out even his brain had begun to gather a fair bit of moss. He thought nothing of blaming the personal failing on the platitude that peace had brought them. There was rarely ever a time he’d have been caught so viciously and violently out of sorts as this before when they’d been castaways, fighting for their bread and butter. Not that he’d been in the wrong mind you, obviously not, he was a wise and elderly dwarrow, one with years of experience and training in this sort of thing and could hardly be misled in his policy. No he was certainly in the right, it’s just that he may have phrased his argument with a tad more discretion.

            The _stone wall_ behind him vibrated as something terrifying must have detonated upon impact. Really, between the hobbit’s alliance with Gandalf and her marriage to Bofur he’d be more surprised if she _didn’t_ have explosives littering her person. With a quick clearing of his throat Balin hoped the domestic lass might come back this way for merely a moment so that he may request something to calm the tickle in his throat. Though it was probably a false hope (only the most addled of their Company would come near Bilbo when she was in one of her snits) he still watched the corners of the hall as he sent himself back a bit in his mind to pinpoint exactly where he’d gotten so mislaid.

            Everything had been going relatively well, as far as these meetings went. The Men of Dale and Esgaroth, accompanied by the Elves of Mirkwood came to call on the newly thriving dwarrow nation monthly to maintain a solidarity that had been sorely missed in the years since their exile. After the Battle of Five Armies, as Ori had termed the nonsense, the leaders of the three nations had determined to aid in the restoration of Esgaroth and the reinstatement of Dale. But seeing as the winter was swiftly settling upon them and there would be precious little done before they fell to the bleak chill of it, the dwarrow had determined to keep the displaced people within the Mountain city under the hopes of gaining stronger alliance and, obviously, aid in the cleaning. Though the Elves had been more than willing to aid the Men as they’d had in the past, they were less than eager to aid dwarrow and, in all honesty, the dwarrow were more inclined to trust the reanimated Spector of Smaug himself than the Elven King Thranduil. Thorin was particularly unreceptive after his stint under the mercy of the Woodland King’s healing prowess. He was not quite willing to humble himself or his people once more in front of the ‘shimmery glow wyrm’.

            Balin had had reservations over the potential for a double cross or a debt as well, but he had to admit, without the aid of the elves the winter may very well have taken them the way Orcs, Goblins, and Dragons had not. Happily, he was far from the only voice of reason in these delicate summits. Their Lady Burglar had been invited (forcefully) to them by a very wise old Grey Wizard, and upon being threatened with starvation was swift to end all foul attitudes, calling on the Woodland Prince, Legolas, and the soon to be confirmed King Bard for aid and reason where there was none to be had in Thranduil or Thorin. She’d only had to keep at them for two weeks before they’d seen the advantage of agreeing with the tiny, _persistent_ , hobbit and the looming Wizard in her corner.

            That had been the beginning of what had soon become a weekly meeting of minds between the four nations. Gandalf had left within a month of these talks, cursing them all back to the stone and dirt they’d been cast from. But with merely a tightening of lips and a sharpening of her elfish blade, Bilbo continued to plow through the race relations each week of the long winter. By the time Spring had sprung the Mountain had been set to something nearing rights and there were plans for tilling and farming on the old fields that had supplied Dale and Erebor in their heyday. Furthermore, the Lady Bilbo had been instated as an official Ambassador by the Princess Dís and the pair had been fighting through, what they’d affectionately referred to as, pig and ass relations since. Though Lady Dís was, more often than not, found solely involved with the Men of Dale and Esgaroth, seeing as her first interaction with Thranduil and his son was to try to set them ablaze and demand they tell her what it felt like to have their lives go up in smoke. No, best left to Bilbo the Woodland Realm.

            And they took rather well to the tiny creature. She’d developed a rather cordial, almost affectionate rapport with the sparkly ponce. Something in her manner and nature seemed to appeal to the ethereal creatures. The Prince Legolas often came to the Mountain merely to chat or have tea with the tiny ambassador; only a small spat with Gimli over some previous insult had clouded these tête-à-têtes. Sometimes young Kíli could be seen dropping by for a quick chat with the elf over their mutual weapon preferences. And Thranduil, when not in the presence of the King Under The Mountain, was taken with the tiny nymph. King Bard would often be heard suggesting it was the inherent goodness that seemed to encompass anything the tiny lass did, for she did very little with only herself in mind. The King of Men was appreciative of the tiny creature’s ability to see past inordinate amounts of pomp and circumstance to the crux of a matter and wrangle sense back into a situation that had become tenuous. But when one was solely concerned with food, home and hearth it was easy to snip away at the trappings. Thorin, on the other hand, could be heard loudly and often insisting the burglar’s elfish looks gained her sympathy and that the overgrown weed eater was merely refusing to be anywhere near reasonable with anything remotely dwarfish. These comments were often met with ill tidings from any of the Ur family, and sometimes from his own sister and heirs who attended the meetings after they’d healed from their battle injuries. But as was stated before, one must understand what one did wrong before progress can be had. As such he continued to rant after almost every bloody summit they forced on him.

            As Spring came and fields were plowed, so to were houses built. The city’s of Men were swiftly erected, nothing too terribly glamorous as yet, but functional, and would see them through the next winter with ease. As all three nascent Kingdoms were on their way the weekly meetings were pushed back to twice a month and then once a month, much to most everyone’s eternal gratitude. The young princes and Bard seemed disappointed if only for the sudden lack of entertainment to be had at the expense of a rather frazzled hobbit, but were more than appeased when the tiny ambassador insisted on making weekly trips to the City’s and Kingdoms to retain their friendships and allegiance (Fíli and Kíli offering their services as guards for their tiny friend when they could sneak away from their Uncle’s wrath). Though it was widely accepted she was more concerned with escaping the Mountain’s King at least once a week rather than any such maintenance. Even with the drastic drop in conferences the Elf and Dwarf King maintained an endearing level of animosity.

            And that is where they found themselves that evening. The months following the war had seen Mirkwood slowly turning back into the Greenwood. After the Battle there had been a dramatic lightening of evil forces within the Mirkwood, with so many now dead Orc and Gobblin lying as so much fodder on the battlefield. The Woodland Realm’s guards and keepers swiftly and expertly dealt with whatever remnants had remained.

            Hobbits were well known for their connection to Yavanna’s Grace and Bilbo had offered what little knowledge and skill she had with plant life to aid the King in his cleansing endeavors. Any tuting about not being half as knowledgeable as her gardener was kindly and swiftly quieted by the ever grateful King and Prince, who were merely glad for her interest in their homeland. As it turned out, she did have a rather terrifying talent for finding those places the infection seemed to have been born from. But whether that was a skill for reading nature and life force or just the incredible stores of bad luck the hobbit seemed to tote about, no one could say for sure. She was certainly the one among the Company who’d handled the eeriness of the Mirkwood the worst, becoming physically ill when the disease infested lands seemed to seep into her being. But she was also the only creature in all Arda who’d been so disastrously ineffective with her feet she’d managed to be snared by cave trolls, not once but twice. Thorin, on his better days, could be heard mumbling that had they not had the jinxed creature with them there probably wouldn’t have been a bleedin’ war in the first place. Dwalin would normally smack him in the head after hearing it, not thoroughly pleased with placing the blame for so much tragedy on the shoulders of one of Arda’s smallest creatures. It also seemed to cause a few moments of unmitigated terror in the Guard as he’d double the patrols on the Mountain just in case some unknown force had heard the blasted King and wanted to prove him right or wrong. Bilbo had yet to find out about these episodes seeing as her family of miners endeavored to keep her thoroughly entrenched in domestic bliss until Dwalin gave the all clear.

            But this is neither here nor there, not in the slightest. As the elves managed to rein in their homeland with some minor help from the hapless hobbit, trade and traveling became much easier and the Woods began to regain their vitality and to prosper once more. Even the elves seemed much friendlier, though no Durin worth his craft would trust the weed eating vermin (save Kíli but that was a tale for another time and somewhere Thorin would _never_ hear). It seemed everything was flourishing between the four nations, and should any one of them flounder they need merely call for aid and their neighbors were there in force with eager hands for the helping.

            The hinging factor here, being one must _ask_ for the aid. There were no live-in ambassadors within the different Kingdoms. An oversight, now that Balin was given wont to think on it, of glaring proportion. Should something arise it was left to the leaders of the individual nations to reach out to their allies. Bilbo was fairly capable in maintaining this open correspondence with the others. When the dwarrow needed for something, damned be Thorin’s pride, the hobbit had no issues begging (as Thorin put it) their friends (as Bilbo put it). Bard had no such qualms either, more concerned with the people who had placed their trust in him than he was with saving face among a group of creatures that, for all they lived longer than he ever would, still behaved worse than his youngest. And it had been assumed Thranduil was reasonable enough, now, to do so as well. And if not him, his son Legolas was _surely_ not going to allow the same depravity from before to befall his Kingdom. Last hope Tauriel was fast friends with the little hobbit and Kíli and endowed with her race’s missing sense, _she_ would reach out for aid when the time called for it, _surely_!

            Now that Balin thought on it all he was quite sure some spore must be the cause of the depletion in mental faculty. Something sinister that had lain in wait for them when they took back the mountain. He rubbed at the bridge of his nose a moment, barely aware of the three swift thuds in the not so sturdy door as a pair of letter openers and a particularly hardy quill were embedded into the frame. How could they have possibly trusted the bloody leaf lickers to police anything that wasn’t as stationary as oak? And even then…

            Surprisingly enough (or not if you weren’t Thorin and Dís) it was young Kíli who’d first noticed the change in their elven allies. Turned out, the lad had been meeting with the elf Guard Tauriel in Dale every other week. He’d thought nothing of one missed meeting, dealt with two but after the third and forth he’d taken the slight to heart. A number of unreturned correspondences were also trying on the boy’s budding ‘friendship’. Concern was rampant in the lad as he tried to squirrel off to the Forest himself and see what was keeping ~~his~~ _the_ Captain so busy she couldn’t even write to him. But his uncle and mother thwarted the lad. When acting together the Durin siblings were an unstoppable force of baleful glaring and roaring tempers. Upon realizing _who_ was preoccupying the lad, Dís had assigned Dwalin to ensure he was kept in the mountain, made his lessons and meetings, and was at least thirty leagues from anything elfish till the end of the Third Age! It was a damned long argument that required not some small intervention on Bilbo’s part to get the lad’s bow back and keep his mother from crating the youth. Thusly yoked Kíli went to the only creature that didn’t fall under the purview of the domineering royals for aid.

            Bilbo had, of course, happily agreed to check on Tauriel for her honorary nephew. She was actually intending to travel to the Wood that very same week. Frodo had yet to see the Elven Kingdom and was completely enthralled with the idea. Bofur would be joining the pair as her usual guard was apparently under house arrest.

            “Will you remember to ask her about Dale?”

            “Of course Kíli.”

            “Don’t forget the letters!”

            “Of _course_ Kíli”

            “Did she not like the poetry?”

            “… You can write?”

            “I knew I should have compared her to a battle-axe. I’m so _stupid_! She’s _far_ too devastating to be a mere war hammer.”

            “A _war hammer_?! You compared an _elf_ to a _war hammer_!?”

            “ _By Mahal you don’t think she thinks I think she’s **fat** do you?!_ ”

            Bilbo slapped a palm to her brow and glared at the hyperventilating youth from around the tiny appendage. Just as he seemed about to start crying again (and hadn’t that been terrifying before she’d worked out the boy had merely been heart wrenched and not mortally wounded once more) she grabbed a lock of unkempt hair and tugged hard.

            “Ow!”

            “Hush!” she snapped as she gave him a hard stare, watching as the large brown orbs, so used to joy, trained on her in abject misery. Her lips twitched into a soft half smile as she smoothed the hurt lock and began running over some spare bits sticking up here and there, “I’ll find your elf for you Kíli. I promise. But, now, you must be a good lad and _quietly_ remain here, get on in your lessons and training so your mother will let you off the mountain again some time this century. Okay?”

            She was suddenly being squished breathless by the exuberant pup as he yowled his “Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyous,” into her aching ears.

            It shouldn’t have been such a surprise that within seconds of entering the Wood the trio were set upon by Spiders. Honestly, had something dark and vicious _not_ come to greet the happy hobbit there may have been cause for alarm. Obviously the end was nigh.

            And had it ended at Spiders everything would have been business as usual. It wouldn’t be the first time a stray arachnid had found its way to the path. But this was the first time an elf hadn’t been chasing it and since it had decided to bring with it a _fleet_ of its despicable brethren the encounter went a bit sideways. Honestly Bilbo hadn’t seen this many overstuffed bugs since their first days in Mirkwood all those years ago, and Thranduil hadn’t mentioned anything about being overrun so the trio were taken by surprise.

            Hobbits liked surprises. Surprise parties, surprise gifts, even surprise babies. And there was little more satisfying than a surprisingly good year for a hobbit’s tomato plants. Surprise attacks that leave their husbands sprawled on the ground at the feet of their trampling mount from a venomous spider bite and a screaming nephew on her own terrified mount was a bit miffing. Having to deal with a thoroughly annoyed King at the end of defending her family wasn’t doing anything for the hobbit Lady’s temper.

            “And exactly what did you plan to do _after_ you got away from the flaming spiders?” Tranduil’s eyebrow was perched high and his mouth was in a harsh appearance of ill content and anger.

            Bilbo glanced up from where she was rubbing soot from her faunt’s face and gave the King one of Nori’s patented malicious smirks, “Set the rest of the louse a flame and good riddance to bad rubbish.” Dropping all pretense of civility she frowned up at the less than impressed elf lord, “We’ll be discussing this pest problem of yours at the next meeting… and why this is the first any of us are hearing of it.”

            And of course they did, _after_ Bilbo burst her way into the Sylvan Realm and hunted up a heavily wounded Tauriel. The elf maiden would make a full recovery in a matter of weeks but had been denied access to all correspondence in or out of the Wood after her previous proclivity towards disobeying her King when he was being troll snot.

            The meeting three days hence had started off with a bang, both Kings more than enraged with each other and the circumstances at hand. And Bilbo, for a bright and shining instant had been firmly in her King’s corner. There eventually came a moment the sapsucker made an off color comment about the dwarrow’s ability to tend their own Kingdom let alone help someone else’s, “But that raises the question, My Lord, about the Greenwood’s condition. To be blunt, your lordship, they were felled by a dragon, what’s your excuse?”

            And it was beautiful, a shimmering moment in Thorin’s long and checkered relationship with the Halfling. It was a _league_ forward for the pair as his regard for his diplomat damn near burst through his _being_. He so rarely fell on the good side of these confrontations with his representative for a moment he sat in stunned, glowing silence as she raked the over tall weed across the coals for his bullshit. And it only got better when the young Prince attempted to defend his father as he was given a thorough lecture and basically told to sit still and look pretty as a good lad should. Bard, that damn bowman, had tears of mirth streaming his eyes as he tried to keep his shoulders from heaving. Finally, things were going Thorin’s way, they were all united in their disgust with the annoying twig eaters and his own subject wasn’t beating him into the dust!

            So of course this is when Thorin decided to cock it all up and summarily deny any and all aid to the Greenwood. Balin nodding his ascent and noting the Wood was Thranduil’s problem, though he should have told them about the issue so they didn’t send their people without proper guard. Bilbo had stilled for all of a moment before completely ignoring her King and Advisor and telling Thranduil she would see a contingent of highly trained dwarrow arrived at their borders tomorrow till they had the pest under control. Thorin’s scowl was dark and terrifying, Balin’s clearly miffed, but before either could raise a _syllable_ in dispute the tiny miss had damn near broke her neck turning back to the pair and, not so much smiled as showed them _all_ of her teeth.

            And that’s how Balin found himself sitting across the way from his King’s thoroughly iron peppered door waiting for his little friend to reemerge. He was truly parched now but also fairly certain no staff was making their way through these halls till after the danger was diminished. Licking his very dry lips he listened out for what sounded like the crescendo to the inner conference. He hadn’t heard Thorin’s roaring for at least twenty minutes now, so either the addled lad had gotten a clue or he was dead and Bilbo was ranting at the corpse for dying in the middle of her berating.

            The former proved true as the door burst out on its hinges to slam into the wall. It shook a bit sending the myriad of metal implements imbedded therein to rattling. Framed in the devastated portal was the heaving frame, and red-cheeked embodiment of wrath and fury. Balin had a moment to think Bofur was a lucky dwarf before he was on his feet, hands extended, face in a carefully rendered picture of remorse and concern, “I’ve been waitin’ for ye lass.”

            That caused the Halfling pause as she turned luminescent yellow eyes towards the contrite advisor’s face to what he held in his extended hands. In his left he clenched a large arrangement of colorful blossoms, as many shapes and sizes that the stalls had available when he’d gone to buy them earlier, perhaps a bit wilted from the long drought in the hall, and in his right a nice sized bag of those dark chocolates Bilbo devoured by the pound one week out of the month. Balin was internally pleased by the slow easing of tension from the ambassador as her cheeks dulled back to a healthier pink shade and her eyes darkened with affection. He was even more satisfied as she took the offerings, placing her face into the blooms and smiling at the sweet smells.

            Not so relieving was the small glare she dashed his way as she looked back up, but far easier to tackle than the ire he and his King had inspired previous, “I’m still rather cross with you Balin.”

            He nodded as he looked down at the floor, shoulders slumping a bit as he did, “Aye, lass, ye’ve the right of it.”

            Bilbo pouted as a hint of hurt flavored her tone, “You’re supposed to be the level headed one during these summits. I depend on your clarity and knowledge. I’m hardly a dwarrow, and cannot perform my duties if the person I rely on to subsidize that lack could be corrupted by some nonsensical feud.” The lass’s teeth came out to bite at her lip as apprehension filled her eyes. Truly this was the most worrying prospect. She relied heavily on the advisor, but if she couldn’t count on him she needed to find some other way to make up for her, well, for her being a hobbit in a dwarf nation.

            Balin shook his head as he stepped up to grasp their burglar by the shoulders, squeezing them in comfort as he assured her, “Ye’ve been the best thing to happen to our people since we burst into your cozy home all those years ago. And that because ye _aren’t_ dwarrow. Never question that lass. Ye’ve a clear understandin’ of right and wrong and listen to it as best you can so’s everyone benefits.” A small embarrassingly pleased smile graced the hobbits face as Balin continued, “I’m sorry for causin’ ye to loose faith in _me_ lass, even fer more than a second.” The old advisor shook his head and didn’t let the tiny female make the denials she was clearly gearing up to make, “You must understand, though, it can be difficult to see past the bitterness of hundreds of years of poverty and pains. All could have been prevented had we had aid in our time of need,” the watery blue eyes of the advisor were shadowed in past grief and present regret.

            Amber eyes reflected the regret as the hobbit lass made to hug her dear old friend only to send the pair laughing as the flowers and chocolates rather got in the way. So she sufficed with placing her head on his shoulder and looking up at the dwarf who’d been something of a grandfather to her since their original journey, “I appreciate the ill feelings, I really do Balin. But we are better than that. _You_ are better than that. Just because they were wrong doesn’t make us right. We must strive to a superior standard.”

            Patting the lass’s curly head he smiled fondly and nodded before placing his head to hers in soft familial recognition, “Of course lass. Yer right. Please, now, I know you must be eager to return to yer miner.”

            With a nod and a kiss to the cheek she was off to her own chambers and her venom addled husband.

            Turning to his Kingly charge Balin couldn’t help the overlarge grin that dominated his face as the dwarf stood there in an incredulous rage, “Well lad, I’m off to have a chat with Dwalin about the regiment for the Mirkwood.” With a swift nod and one last look over the elder pointed to the lad’s head, “I’d have Óin check on that,” and left. He really was parched. Maybe he’d wander over to Dori’s Tea Shop before finding his infuriating little brother. He was just as granite headed as their King where the elves were concerned and the advisor could do with some peace and a civilized chat before engaging the petulant guard.

            Thorin stood there, his head wound slowly bleeding, a quill still sticking out of it, as his chief advisor pranced off to his own tasks. Finally he threw his hands up in the air and stormed off for his own chambers, obviously he had never been King of his damn mountain but at least he had the biggest rooms.

            Turned out, no, Dís did and he wasn’t going to engage yet another irrational female.


	11. Thranduil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Your faith was strong but you needed proof  
> You saw her bathing on the roof  
> Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you  
> She tied you  
> To a kitchen chair  
> She broke your throne, and she cut your hair  
> And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
> 
> Hallelujah, Hallelujah  
> Hallelujah, Hallelujah
> 
> Rufus Wainwright - Hallelujah

            There were very few pleasures to be had when you are the King of a nation in its infancy. The sheer amount of work and worry that went into governing a people and providing for their needs was daunting and terrifying work. It often ended in sleepless nights with little to no acknowledgement or peace. Bard could certainly attest to that. But there were unique joys to be found in the position as well. First and foremost being the joy and pride in seeing his people thrive and prosper. There was also the relief that came with know he was no longer living hand to mouth and his dear children were finally being seen to in a manner they deserved and he thanked the Valar daily for. And finally, and not the least, mind you, was being given a front row seat to this circus.

            “They are seeking and gaining refuge in _your_ kingdom!” Thorin growled out as he glared at the useless leaf-eating bastard, his words, not Bards.

           Honestly, at first, when these summits had originally been organized by that very queer wizard type the newly declared King of Dale had been less than eager. The elves were one thing; they’d been helping his people for ages, not splendidly, but enough. The dwarrow hadn’t made quite that impression, however, though he was fond of the Princes and that one, hatted fellow. They’d, after all, kept his girls safe and alive during the dragon’s attack. On the other hand, if it hadn’t been for their fellows the damned beast would have stayed in the cursed mountain and their services would have been unnecessary. But then his children wouldn’t be as well off as they were now and he wouldn’t be sitting here and enjoying the next segment of his favorite pastime, watching long lived creatures behaving as badly as his son when he was half the age he currently sported.

            The haughty elf King rose a single silvered eyebrow as he stared at the growing aggravation on the dwarf King’s face and leaned forward, “Perhaps it would better behoove you to look to your own Kingdom instead of concerning yourself with other’s, lest you loose it once more.”

            Bard visibly saw the dwarf’s temper shatter as he let loose a wordless growl and surged forward onto the table. The King’s reach for the elf was stopped however, as a tiny hand shot out from his left and diverted his attention. Their resident hobbit was looking at the Elfin King with creased brow and gold eyes, ridiculously large mouth twitching and thinned, as a small vessel at her temple seemed to be resonating in time to her pulse. The King of Dale set his blade loose and once again leaned back in his chair, trying valiantly not to let a smirk twitch at his lips. Things were about to get interesting.

            Thorin, being highly acquainted with that particular facial twitch in their resident Hobbit’s face, leaned back in his chair as well, with a wide smile that, were he not royal, would be easily construed as shit eating.

            “Are you suggesting the exile of Durin’s folk from the Mountain was somehow a show of improper management, your Majesty?” the tone was light, as was the tight smile that Bilbo politely gave Lord Thranduil. Thorin was merely pleased to find himself behind that face for once. Bard was riveted to the elf as he awaited his reaction. Surely such an ethereal creature would recognize danger when it was staring him in the face.

            That haughty bastard had no idea what he was walking into, “It would appear the little fathers are becoming less and less capable of holding onto their own lands as time goes on. I recall a time when there were seven great Kingdoms, not five, a lost crypt and a heap desperately being refurbished by its cantankerous squatters.”

            The insult was hard to maintain, even the other dwarrow in the room were rustling with their desire to strike the smug from the snotty shit. But what an army of dwarrow couldn’t do with all their strength and skill, a tiny hobbit would with a single question. “Yes, the renovations of the Kingdom have been coming along fabulously for so few years since the great delousing. And Dale has continued to thrive under our fastidious friendships,” she smiled at the popularly appointed King Bard, who raised his brow and nodded, keeping his hand crossed over his own mouth as he watched his tiny friend work. And work she did, as her eyes turned sharp as yellow glass, “But that raises the question, My Lord, about the Greenwood’s condition. To be blunt, your lordship, they were felled by a dragon, what’s your excuse?”

            The poncy bastard was twitching as he glared at the tiny woman. It did nothing to quell her however as she plowed forward, without allowing him a chance at rejoinder, “As far as I can tell those creatures have been allowed to roam and recklessly endanger all form of life on Arda for quite some time. We’d made very great strives as allies to eradicate the menace after the war, so much so we’d all been sure it had been a success. To say I was shocked to find them still lingering, and so close to the borders of the Forest at that, would be putting it mildly. Especially after having heard nothing from my friends and allies on the account.” At this time she took a sip from a chalice at her left filled with clear water as she continued to stare down the Elf Lord, who continued to glare at her insctrutibly. With a soft hmm, she continued, “I can only assume you knew nothing of the beasts, for surely you would have reached out to your friends and neighbors if they had been overrunning your Kingdom once more. Surely, as a responsible and stolid King you would have realized the danger such a louse would pose to you’re the Men of Esgaroth and given some form of warning. Perhaps you have overlooked parts of your homelands? Would you like to make a request, here, now, during this, our monthly alliance meeting, for aid in patrolling your boarders? Obviously there is no question of aid in ridding the Greenwood of the disturbance itself, you will have the full support of Erebor for that, and I imagine Dale…” she turned an expectant gaze to Bard who merely nodded his head rapidly, still too fascinated by the particular shade of puce the King of the Greenwood was turning, “Well then, there you have it. Perhaps we should discuss the plans for patrol?”

            Thranduil had done miraculously well thus far, but at the idea that anyone not elven would be stomping through his forests his face turned an alarming shade of red and he rose to his feet, “The Greenwood is of no concern to you or any outsider. We will take care of our home and that is all there is to say on the issue.”

            Before Bilbo could say anything Thorin decided to add his two coppers and Bard was sure Yule had come early, “Agreed.”

            And then the advisor continued from where he stood next to the King, nodding, “As well it should be. The Elves should be left to bring their forests in hand.”

            Bard really shouldn’t be quite so enthused at the twitching in his tiny friends face, surely it was indicative of some form of damage being done her by the sheer amount of idiocy she chose to surround herself with… On the other hand, she _chose_ to surround herlself with it. Bilbo spared one ire filled look for both dwarrow that had them instantly shutting their Mahal damned mouths and turned back to the Sylvan King, “Surely as contingency of dwarrow would facilitate the matter –”

            “The creatures have made a small resurgence but we have everything in hand. It would better befit a creature of the East to mind her business where it is actually wanted,” Thranduil interrupted icily, staring down at the tiny creature.

            Even Bard was not having any of what the Green Lord was pushing as he took frowned at the implication Bilbo’s concern and presence was undesirable. The tiny hobbit was the only person in the room Bard felt had any damn sense besides him when it came to what was needed and necessary. He’d spent too much time as a commoner and a poor one at that, to be concerned with naught else but food and his people’s safety and prosperity. Hobbits seemed to think along the same lines and with her help and guidance these meetings normally fell just short of erupting into complete chaos.

            Of course, he merely frowned and moved to confront the Elf King. The dwarrow threw themselves into an instant upheaval and attempted to use the negotiation table as a springboard to take the elf’s head. Happily for Thranduil his son was far more prepared for his father’s incendiary statement and made short work of the offended. As things were gearing up for a full mini war Bilbo once more proved more sense than anything else, getting onto the table and placing her own self in between the dwarrow and the elf, “Now, that’s hardly polite.” Her sharp gaze had the congregation silenced as she turned it back to the instigator, “My Lord Thranduil, I know it has been a very long day and I had thrust this meeting upon you rather quickly. I do apologize for that, and the exhaustion it must be causing you. For it is only exhaustion that could have stopped you, such a civil and polite companion from inquiring as to the state of my family.”

            If Bard didn’t know better he’d have assumed the elven King had truly been petrified in that moment. He’d ceased all motion; barely a breath seemed to escape him as he stared at the tiny woman in front of him. Seeing this Bilbo continued, “Frodo is fine, though he’s not to sure he wishes to visit the forest anytime soon. A little too much excitement for one so young, I’m sure you understand, having a son of your own you look to.” At this Bilbo smiled benignly at Legolas where he stood at his father’s right hand. She then trained her eyes back on the King and announced in as timid a voice as any had ever heard from her, “My dear husband did not fare quite so well. I had to leave him in the hands of our dear friend and healer to be here right now, actually, though it seems the poison in those nasty creatures’ bite won’t cause any lasting damage. A Dwarrow constitution being what it is. They are so much more hearty than the rest of us after all.”

            The two stared at each other a long moment before the elf King nodded slowly and stated, “I apologize for my oversight my friend. I should have inquired first thing.”

            Bilbo smiled tiredly at him as she situated herself back in her seat, “Of course, what are friends for? Now about those patrols –”

            The rest of the talks went by rather smoothly with only a handful of grumbles from the dwarrow that were instantly shut down by the tiny terror they had invited into their kingdom. It was only as Thranduil was finally ensconced in his own Kingdom that he realized anything was amiss when his dear little prince asked him where he’d placed his circlet.


	12. Óin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'll never leave, I'll never stray  
> My love for you will never change  
> But I ain't ready to make up or get around to that  
> I think I'm right I think your wrong  
> I'll probably give in before long  
> Please don't make me smile  
> I just want to be mad for awhile
> 
> Terri Clark – I Just Wanna Be Mad

            It was a day as any other, or it had begun as such for Óin. He’d risen, had breakfast with his brother’s family and the Company and then set off for the Healing Halls. He’d taken the first shift of the day for checking on those patients who were there for an extended stay. Most were elderly but some were just damned fools who didn’t know when enough was enough. Hearty though his people were they were also stupid as the day was long. There were at least three miners who’d decided breathing wasn’t as necessary as some had believed and thus allowed themselves to inhale entirely too much dust in their attempts to out do each other in the mines. Now they were here for extended observation to ensure their lungs didn’t quit suddenly on them. Then the five Friebeards who’d been convinced the best way to win the affections of a dwarrowdam was to stage a mock battle in the pub they’d near drank themselves senseless at. Only come to find the dwarrowdam was spoken for… and no dam at all. They’d given themselves multiple lacerations, concussions, and broken bones. Finally there was one lad who’d apparently tried to dip his wick into a mineshaft and the less said about that the better. He was being dosed hourly in an attempt to let his body heal up a bit before he had to face reality.

            The second shift was him leading the apprentices around. He was a Master Healer after all, and in charge of a certain number of these rockwits. Really, though, he feared for the Mountain after he was gone. These new batch were always looking for some kind of new bleedin’ disease or plague where the answer was a simple cold or too much of those off glowing shrooms they’d discovered upon reentering the Mineral Shafts.

            He broke for lunch after the last of them scurried away with the fires of Mordor burning in their eyes and then he was back to doing a few checkups and rounds. It was while he was checking on a very severe burn one of the lads had supposedly received from looming too close to the cookpot, that the day had taken a tilt. Three dwarrow came rushing in, Bofur in their arms and unconscious. One of the guard fed him the details as he instantly got to work. The lad had multiple lacerations and a good amount of thick yellow venom pulsing from multiple bite marks. The lacerations were none too deep so he focused on the bites. They were oozing more yellow than blood, which wasn’t a good sign in his book but at least it was yellow and not black. Yellow meant young ons, meant not quite so venomous. All the lad would suffer was from one nasty header and a log confused couple of hours. So without further ado he took to palpating the wounds. When there was a bit more red than yellow coming out he started the process of disinfection. There wasn’t antivenom for those bastard bugs but the usual firewort would burn the stuff out as the miner’s system naturally worked through the side effects. It hurt like the devil though and Óin was pleased as punch he couldn’t hear the yowls coming from the lad, let me tell you.

            Once that was taken care of he got to clean the rest of the lad up. Dirt had to come off, a swift cleaning but thorough. Anything in those woods could cause infection and then the lad would be in real trouble. Seemed well though, no discoloration, no odd scents as of yet. He’d get the lassie to look out for it though; on the off chance they’d missed something. After that he applied a bit of balm to the wounds, reduced pain and swelling, before bandaging the rest up. Not bad for being taken completely unawares as the lad had been. He sure didn’t want to see the looks on Bofur’s Hobbit’s face when she found out about this though. Mahal have mercy on any who had the misfortune to tell her. Best to not be the one she found with her husband. Not like the lad needed to remain in the Healing Halls for a couple bites and abrasions.

            Óin suddenly turned to see about getting one of the idiots running about here to help heave the lad back to his own chambers when he was suddenly met with a red faced hobbit. To be sure the lass looked far from ready to throw anything but he’d been about these halls long enough to know it was best to remain silent and still when confronted with that kind of anger. So he watched the hobbit as she gesticulated and roared mutely into the hall, which had been deserted it appeared. How long had she _been_ there?!

            Suddenly the manic waving about ceased and Bilbo took a number of calming breathes as she turned to face the healer, composed for the first time since she entered the halls with her attacked husband. He read her lips as she smiled gratefully at the old healer _Thank you Óin. You’re a wonderful listener._ And then he was being pecked on the cheek before the lass raced to her husband’s side and caressed his own cheek with similar affections and tromped off to destroy whatever fools set themselves in her path next.

            Óin, eldest son of Gróin shook his head and blessed the day he’d lost the majority of his hearing before bellowing after the good for nothing pieces of petrified dragon dung that had abandoned their post at the first sign of the enraged little miss.


	13. Glóin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh I-- could tell you why,  
> The ocean’s near the shore.  
> I could think of things I never thought before,  
> Then I’d sit-- and think some more.
> 
> I would not be just a nothin’,  
> My head all full of stuffin’,  
> My heart all full of pain.  
> I would dance and by merry,  
> Life would be a dingle derry,  
> If I only had a brain.
> 
> The Flaming Lips – If I Only Had A Brain

            “Pa, I’m no’ sure this is the best idea…”

            “I’ve trained more than my fair share of youngling’ Gimli. I know what I’m about.”

            “I’m no’ sayin’ anythin’ abou’ yer trainin’ pa. I’m jus’ sayin’ it may be better ta talk wit the bairn’s ma first…”

            “Lad, I know the bit’s ma and she’d be happy we’re taking care ‘o the lad.”

            “… Pa, this is beginin’ ta feel like that time with the dog.”

            “It ain’ nothin’ like the damn dog, Gimli! Iffn’ yer no’ gonna help ye can go off an’ work on yer bladework!”

            “… I’m wit ye to the end pa,” the lad sounded just completely downtrodden as he sighed that out and grabbed the bridge of his large nose, one he’d inherited from his mother. The habit too as he was very attached to the pillar of strength and _sense_. But he didn’t say anything else about the nonsense that was ensuing or leave because he was inspired by his father’s sense of loyalty and righteousness, so he would not be leaving the man who’d reared him to his demise. Even if it was brought about by his own damned stubbornness.

            Nodding at the lad Glóin ignored the only voice of reason for miles about seeing as his wife was in Dale with Lady Dís and Bilbo was attending a meeting with the Durins on trade agreement rhetoric concerning the Elves, and turned to the tiny smiling mite where he stood waiting with luminous blue eyes. Frodo’s crooked smile was beaming as he stood, barely to Glóin’s knee in ill fitting leather’s that had fit Gimli when the lad was a crawler and a toy hammer the lad had suckled on when he’d been teething. He could only hold it with both hands firmly gripping the wood below the head and was all but vibrating with the fun he anticipated Uncle Glóin was going to show him. The father smiled brightly at the cute tot as he nodded, “Right, ready then lad?”

            The curly black mop rioted about his elfish face as he announced, “Aye Uncle Glóin!” the wee thing tried to add the rumble into his voice he’d heard most of his new family used when speaking but fell rather short, sounding more a yip than a growl.

            Glóin laughed uproariously as he rustled the wee things curls and turned to see his son was smiling down at his tiny cousin a moment before catching his father’s gleaming eyes and grimacing. He was too young to become fatherless… He hoped Aunt Bilbo would take that into account when she found out about this.

            “Right then lad. First things first. Stance. Ye take yer weapon and ground yerself like this. Tha’s right, move yer wee leg a bit forward. Jus’ so. Then we…”

            For a while it looked like things were going to be fine. Gimli was even calm enough to start helping his wee Half- _Hobbit_ cousin adjust his grip and stance, and even a hardened warrior as himself and his da could see admit it was beyond adorable. But then his pa had to go and up the ante. Sidenote, Glóin, son of Gróin was no’ a bettin’ man and it was mostly cause the lad hadn’ a notion in his fool head when to call it a day.

            So when he suggested a wee bout with the tiny one Gimli had frozen with terror and thrown his axes down, point blank refusing. Of course his father insisted and in no tiny tiny Frodo was on the floor staring up at his dwarrow Uncle looking confused and a wee bit cross. Iffn’ they’d had time, there was no doubt the wee bit o’ trouble’d have popped back up and engineered a revenge that would have made Uncle Nori proud. But they were spared that disillusioning event by the roar that sounded through the Mountain and convinced not half the nation that Smaug had returned for vengeance.

            “ ** _What in the name of all that is Green and Growing do you think you’re doing?!_** ” Bilbo marched out in her Durin blue gown that she wore when she knew the days events were going to lead Thorin to call into question her loyalty and continued presense as one of his advisors. She raced out and had placed her diminutive self right between herself and the fool dwarf who didn’t think it necessary to cower the way his surprisingly aware son did.

            “There’s no’ need for dramatics lass, I was jus’ train’ the lad,” Glóin, when self preservation is needed don’t be callin’.

            Bilbo’s eyes flared gold as Smaugs belly as she growled up at the tiny Father, “Exactly what made you think this was something I’d want!? He’s a faunt Glóin! The hammer’s the size of his face for the Mother’s sake!”

            “He’ll grow into it. Me Gimli started with the self same hammer and lookit him now!” Glóin gestured behind him, trying to unlatch the lad who definitely _didn’t_ want anyone looking at him at the moment. Least of all the enraged hobbit mum.

            “ _He_ is _not_ a dwarf! _He_ is a _Hobbit_ and a young one at that! There will be _no_ weapons training! No training of _any kind_!” the lass growled at the burly warrior where he stood feet away. She’d picked up little Frodo and was brushing the dust from his fall off, cooing after his ills like some great bird duster.

            “Oh aye? An’ wha’ are ye gonna do when tha lad is taken out from under you? You can’t be near him every second of the day. You _aren’t_. No, best to maintain that fine Halfling propriety an’ let the lad perish under the blade of some lad who’s mother didn’t smother him into a useless coddled louse!” He knew it was the wrong thing to say the minute it was out his mouth, but he was right damnit! No matter that it wasn’t pretty, the lad wasn’t in their peace loving little Green Hills. They were living among dwarrow, and like it or not, dwarves were a race of warriors. She’d already been met with the harsher reality they lived in more than once, kidnapped herself as it were. The only thing tha’ had gotten her out of that situation relatively unharmed were the skills she’d picked up on their journey, and some that Nori had taught her. To let the wee bairn remain so ignorant was both unwise and cruel.

            Didn’t change the fact that it was both the wrong thing to say and not his place. He knew it the moment her back snapped in the doomed air. Gimli’s hand meeting his face added a small smack to the tense atmosphere as their Burglar picked her tiny tot up and turned snapping yellow eyes on him. Her pert mouth was white and thin as she glared up at him with all the fury of a mother warg. “He is my child, Master Glóin, and I’ll raise him as I see fit and proper.”

            Well, in for a penny out for a pound he’d always said. The cat was already pissed for being in the bag, he’d might as well give it a good shake before he let it out, “And a daft job you’re doin’. Keep this up an’ he’ll live to be a ripe ol’ age and never once have scraped a knee or wiped ‘is own arse. Assumin’ somethin’ don’t come along and maul ‘im beforehand!”

            As the lass marched away from the field he turned his harsh glare onto his own boy and growled, “None o’ this gets back te ye mum! Got that?!” The lad’s nod was quick and eager as he advanced on him for some suddenly rather _intense_ axe training.

***

            When his lovely fire haired bride found him in their living quarters with that look in her eyes he knew he should have beaten that child as a dwarfling. No loyalty in the lad _at all_. At least, none for his father.

            “Hello my darling. My lamb. The Warrior of my Heart and Guard of my Virtue.” She was beyond pissed. The only time his lovely firestone used sweet nothin’s he knew he was one foot in the grave with the other slippin’ on ice.

            So Glóin did what any reasonable thinking creature would do at this point, he jumped to his feet and held his hands in the universal sign for warding off evil and/or a beating, “Now, Vaíl, I was trynna protect the wee spawn.” He sidestepped the livingroom table and placed the chair he’d been sitting in between the pair of ‘em as well. Out the corner of his eye he saw a red blur make for the exit of their suite and swore he’d see the lad run to and from Dale by days end.

            The jewel of his heart took a couple of dainty steps to the left, effectively sealing the exit from him as he’d have to race within her reach to get there and tilted her stolid square head to the right as though considering. Her perfect pouty pink lips turned down a smidge as she nodded, “Aye, I’d say as much meself. You’re no’ in the wrong as far as the lads concerned me dear.”

            Glóin wasn’t fool enough to think the concession would save him. ‘Specially not when his beloved still clutched at her rather impressive, if he did say so himself (which he did as he’d fashioned the thing himself as a courting gift), war hammer. But he did get a bit hopeful as he inched towards the right watching as she continued to pace him with her fiery tanzanite gaze, “Aye, it’s no’ safe for the lad.”

            Vaíl nodded again, taking her hammer from her shoulder and placing the head to the stone floor with a light thump before leaning on it, “It isn’t.”

            “It’s only what we’d do fur Gimli as it were…” he took another few steps out from behind the table, closer to their bedroom archway which happened to have rather large window that fell out onto the marketplace. It was a five-story drop but he’d had worse. And with luck that glasswear merchant would be there to offer some cushion.

            “It is,” she smiled at him. Damn he’d fucked up.

            Glóin forgot she hated that chair of his. The table’d been a gift from her mother. The chair was a remnant of his bachelorhood that she’d been looking to rid them of the entire time they’d been wed.

            He was angrier with himself than surprised when the fire of his passions instantly had her hammer whirling across the air. It threw his chair into the cavern wall where it became all that much kindling and slammed right into his left temple, sending him down with the bleedin’ thing. Honestly, he was impressed, and not a little proud, seein’ as how he’d been the one to teach her to wield the thing. And if that hadn’t won him points with his balrog mother-in-law. Eesh.

            So he sank to the floor addled and sighed, “Aye, lass. Say yer piece.”

            He was helped into a seated position leaning against the wall with his fireblossom kneeling and checking over his head, cool hands tenderly maneuvering his head this way and that. He could have told her nothin’d been jiggled loose. He’d had worse in training with his own pa. ‘ell, a warg had damn near ripped his scalp off once and if that hadn’t made Óin’s hair turn that much whiter that much quicker he didn’t know what did. But he’d be a liar who lied if he didn’t admit, at least to himself, he enjoyed his wife’s tenderin’. Her hands were a soothing balm to his world weary head and soul and her pouty pink lips were a tantalizin’ distraction from the ache in his back from leaning against the wall.

            “Oh, I agree with you fully husband mine. It’s beyond foolish to let the wee scamp run here abouts with nothing defendin’ him but his attachment to the Royal Family. ‘Specially seein’ as that’s what’s more like to get ‘im into trouble faster than his wee hairy feet.” Vaíl nodded as she saw nothing bleedin’ and no new lumps. Satisfied she turned her tanzanite eyes to her smitten husband and smiled that indulgent thing she reserved just for him as she cupped the fierce curls of his bearded cheeks in her jewelers hands before leaning in to kiss the ridiculous smile off his face.

            “Well’n wha’s this for then?” Glóin grumbled as he closed his eyes and brought their foreheads together, enjoy’in’ the weight of his wife makin’ herself comfortable on his lap, his calloused hands racing about her thick waist, flirtin’ with the tassels of her corset. He hated the damned things, she’d began wearin’ ‘em after Gimli’d been born, said they slimmed her back to wha’ she used to be. The weight she’d put on for the lad hadn’t left even this long after his birth. Glóin thought it gave him more to love, and she’d gained it all givin’ him a walkin’ talkin’ testament of their shared love and life. But no amount of reassurance made the corsets disappear so he just worked towards becomin’ right proficient at takin’ the devilish things off when they were together.

            Vaíl smiled wryly as she felt her husband going for the bands of her top and felt the love she held for the gamy bastard overwhelm her. She may never get over being a tad self conscious over the extra weight but she was stolid in her husbands continued love and enjoyment of her body, extra and all. But that was neither here nor there as she leaned back a touch and flicked him in the forehead, “You made Bilbo cry.”

            She watched as her gentle souled husband’s face instantly collapsed and then fired up again as guild tried to hide behind righteousness, “But I was right! Ye said it yerself! She needs ta stop thinkin’ like these are her Green Hills and protect the lad right!”

            Shaking her head she kissed him to silence before cupping his pouting face again, “Aye, and she’ll come to see you’re right soon enough herself. Bu’ that doesn’t make it right ta call her a bad mother Glóin. And that’s _just what ye did, donna deny it!_ ” She saw it in his eyes and allowed him to grumble a bit before continuing, “Iffn’ someone wanted to go abou’ teachin’ Gimli archery would’n you ‘ave somethin’ te say about it?”

            “Yer damn right I would. No son o’ mine needs takin’ up elvish warfare when he’s perfectly proficient wit the weapons of his fathers!” Glóin glared into the distance at the would be offender. He could imagine that pretty little princeling tha’ came by for tea every other week woul’ be the culprite. Gimli was a wee bit too familiar with the elfling.

            He was brought back to his world by his wife’s hand as she turned him back to face her, his scowl falling away to his besotted smile as her own turned rueful, “Aye, ye’d be right beside yerself wouldn’ ye? Someone darin’ ta teach out lad somethin’ without consultin’ ye first… somethin’ outside our ken?”

            Glóin instantly frowned as his cogs started turnin’, “She’s practically a dwarrowdam!”

            Vaíl rolled her eyes, “Oh, aye. An’ iffn’ proximity turned people into other races then she’d be a dwarf an’ Bofur’d be the bleedin’ hobbit. Come now, my heart’s shield, you know better than that.” The pout was back on her husband’s face but she could see sense had finally reined. With a smile and a lingering kiss she nodded, “Now go an’ apologize te Bilbo before she decides it best to move her wee family across the world. I need more friends tha’ aren’t your bleedin’ dense family.”

            She made to get up only to stop as her corset suddenly went to fall off her. She turned surprised tanzanite eyes to her cheeky husband who was smirkin’ like a wee lad caught with his fingers in the honey, “Aye, I’ll do that in a mo’.”

            He always loved his love’s laugh, and enjoyed it now as he brought the pair o’ ‘em up from the floor and carried the beauty into their bedchamber.

***

            Later that evening he went out and found his hobbits walking the battlements with her ward with Dwalin and Ori as was their wont. Seein’ him comin’ the currs both took off with the bairn like the lily livered orc shite they were. He stopped three paces away from the lass and sighed. They stood in silence for all of a tic before he got tired of it and announced, “Aye, I was wrong te say anythin’ about how ye’re raisin’ yer bairn. Young Frodo’s a right sweetheart an’ it’s mostly due te the care ye give ‘im. It wasn’t my place te start in on any trainin’ withou’ askin’ ye first. I’m sorry lass.”

            Bilbo blinked before smiling ruefully at her larger counterpart and said just as contrite, “No, it wasn’t, but you were right and I was wrong to overreact. After talking it over with Bofur and Bifur it’s been made clear to me that this isn’t the Shire and it is negligent to leave Frodo so defenseless. This is something I can’t teach him and I’d be honored if you’d take him under your tutelage.”

            Glóin beamed as he came forward and wrapped the lass into a big bear hug and then started dragging her off to find the lad and his spineless comrades, “It’s be a pleasure lass. I was thinkin’, he is a mite tiny, perhaps the hammer is a bit big for him jus’ yet, what say you to maybe a mace? Or a dirk?”

            Bilbo ignored the pallor she sensed coloring her face as she imagined her tiny Frodo fighting off fiends with a wee toothpick of a blade but shook it off as she felt Glóin clench her shoulders, “Aye, it’s a wee bit terrifying, thinkin’ abou’ them facin’ off somethin’ faceless and deadly. Makes ye wanna go out and kill anythin’ that woul’ try before it has a chance.” The serious cast to Glóin’s face as he stared at her sent her lip to wobbling, seeing the same fear in his eyes for his own son, the one that had led him to taking on a dragon with naught but twelve dwarves and a hobbit at his back.

            Biting back her tears she smiled crookedly up at the father and nodded as she leaned her tired head on his supportive shoulder, “Aye, it is. But at least I know there’s more than just me looking after him.” Glóin gripped her in a side hug once more and she smiled as she considered, “I’m thinking, until he’s built up the muscle, it might be better for him to practice with a boa or a staff of some sort. Like the Elves have. I’m sure I can get Legolas to bring one that would suit Frodo’s size and needs.”

            “… Ach lass yer killin’ me!”


End file.
